An artist tends deep and tangled roots of musical tradition
Published 1:30 am Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Musician and folklorist Melanie Beth Curran will bring her distinctive blend of artistry and historical preservation to Open Space for Arts & Community on Friday, August 29.
Curran’s career is more than self-expression — it is an act of cultural recovery. For the past five years, she has been reviving songs of Irish America that have slipped from public memory and breathing new life into them through her recordings and live performance.
Curran’s path into this work began during a Fulbright Scholarship in Brittany, France, where she studied the influence of social media on the transmission of traditional music and dance — arts that were once only passed “bouche à oreille,” or mouth-to-ear. In France, many assumed she was Irish, a perception that stirred her curiosity about her own heritage and family traditions.
Her research led her to the Library of Congress archives, where she became fascinated with Irish-American folk songs collected by Alan Lomax in Michigan in the 1930s. These rediscovered voices inspired her forthcoming album of Irish-American folk music, set to release later this year. Among its tracks is “Glenswilly,” a moving farewell to her great-grandfather, who emigrated from Donegal at just 13 years old.
Curran’s journey has taken her to Ireland, where she has performed, researched, and connected with relatives still living in Donegal. Along the way, she has found linguistic echoes of her heritage and even met people who could sing songs she had unearthed from the archives.
“We’re left with the yearning, the longing, the absence of something,” she says. “For me, it’s finding little pieces of that to soothe the pain. I do that for myself — and I do that for people — through the music.”
Experience this heartfelt journey firsthand when Curran takes the stage at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 29, at Open Space for Arts & Community. Find out more and purchase tickets at openspacevashon.com.
