Irish Tune from County Derry - Percy Grainger - Pacific Chorale

On St. Patrick’s Day 2013, Pacific Chorale’s John Alexander Singers and the dancers of A Gaelic Gathering filled Samueli Theater with Irish cheer in an evening of traditional folk music and dance. The concert opened with Percy Grainger’s choral arrangement of an “Irish Tune from County Derry”... a plaintive melody many know as “Danny Boy.”

Not an Irishman by birth, Australian Percy Grainger became steeped in the rich tradition of folk music of the British Isles, which was coming into vogue in musical communities during his emergent years in London in the early part of the 20th Century.