The once-reviled accordion is back in favour, largely thanks to the fine, eclectic playing of Máirtín O'Connor. He puts down his box to talk to Siobhán Long

The accordion has endured (or enjoyed?) a hellish reputation over the years. Often reviled as a demonic manifestation of what music might sound like amid the fires of Hades, in recent years it has somehow managed to rehabilitate itself in a manner more usually reserved for graduates of the Betty Ford clinic. Ms Minnelli and Ms Taylor (Liza and Liz to you and me) could do worse than take a leaf out of the greatest recovery story of them all: how the lowly box has miraculously repositioned itself at the heart and hearth of traditional music, with ne'er a sign of an addiction counsellor in sight.

Máirtín O'Connor, loath though he might be to admit it, has at the very least played midwife to this extraordinary recovery.

Between his heady skites in the company of De Danann and Skylark, his soundtrack work for films such as Some Mother's Son and Dancing At Lughnasa, his recent Rain Of Light suite which anchored this year's St Patrick's Festival fireworks display, and his countless guest appearances with everyone from The Chieftains (on The Long Black Veil) to The Dubliners (on Thirty Years A Greying) to Mark Knopfler (Golden Heart), not to mention the late, great Townes Van Zandt (on Deeper Blue), O'Connor has stretched and bent his accordion into shapes and places most musicians had never even dreamt of before.

Máirtín O'Connor plays and composes music as readily as his lungs inhale oxygen.

He's not a musician to be distracted by petty quarrels over the "purity" of the tradition. In fact, "traditional", "classical", "contemporary" or "folk" are redundant in his vocabulary, where the synthesis of sounds and rhythm occupy more head-space than any wordplay.

And his appearance tonight in Galway's Town Hall Theatre, in the opening peformance of a summer series of concerts entitled Between The Jigs And The Reels, bears testimony to the man's lateral thinking, his refusal to remain inside any box, and his delight in spinning disparate sounds in entirely new shapes and colours.

O'Connor will share the stage with a plethora of traditional music's finest, including piper Paddy Keenan, singers Maighread and Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill, fiddler Cathal Hayden, saxophonist and clarinettist Ken Edge, sean nós dancer Joe Naughton, and the renowned multi-instrumentalist and producer, Garry Ó Briain. Hardly what you might call a ropey collective.

"I enjoy it a lot," O'Connor maintains, "because there's much less pressure than doing a full gig. We work in various permutations and combinations throughout the evening which makes it more interesting for a start, and so it tends to make you feel very fresh for the whole night."

Having composed the exceedingly eclectic Rain Of Light suite, O'Connor welcomes what he sees as an all-too-rare chance to perform it in toto during this summer run.

"We performed it in the National Concert Hall and people seemed to like it a lot," he explains, "and the musicians were anxious to perform it again so this is an opportunity to have a go at it. The line-up that we have in the band is fairly substantial so it's not a practical proposition, financially, to tour with a line-up like that but this is an ideal opportunity for us to air it again, so to speak."

The musical milieu in Ireland isn't exactly teeming with musicians who are able and willing to cross the great genre divide with the alacrity that O'Connor does. Is this part of some grand plan to unite traditional and classical, I wonder? O'Connor laughs at the suggestion that it might be premeditated in any way.

"I've never been one to plan out a direction, as such," he admits, "and I've always tended to go with the flow, and this is where the flow takes me now.

"I suppose subconsciously I'm happy enough to blend different sounds together as much as possible but it's not a conscious decision. Nothing is planned out, and I'm always at the mercy of what occurs to me, to follow whatever feels right at a particular time."

Regardless of what category or straitjacket might be foisted upon him, O'Connor is wily enough not to take success, or indeed financial security, for granted in a business that is so much at the mercy of the prevailing economic climate.

He knows that musicians, like all artists, often take the first hit at the merest hint of an economic slump.

"I think that there's a world stage there now for Irish traditional musicians," he offers tentatively, "and over the last few years, it has become more possible - though not necessarily easier - to make a living. More touring circuits have been set up to facilitate this but at the same time, given the world economic conditions, it's really hard to know how things will go, and arts budgets are the first to suffer when the economic climate nosedives. Certainly, the 'scene' as such has opened up over the years, though."

O'Connor balances working at home with the kind of travels that not only enhance the passport, but positively inject his own music with fresh ideas.

Two trips to Nigeria in particular have fired his imagination in ways he had never anticipated.

"At each gig in Nigeria, we worked with three African percussionists and two African dancers," he recalls.

"Joe Naughton the sean nós dancer was there too, and while we provided the tunes, what the African percussionists did caused the music to undulate in a certain way rhythmically and it created a whole atmosphere in the music.

"And of course for us it was fascinating to look at the way the African dancers responded. It's a whole different rhymical expression. There's just a sensuousness in the African expression that was incredible to watch."

O'Connor is non-committal on the question of whether his own percussionist, Danny Byrt, will bring his belly-dancer's headdress to Galway's Town Hall (as he did to the recording of Rain Of Light). What he is willing to confirm, though, is that there'll be no shortage of new ideas and fresh sparks flying when the ensemble hits the stage.

"I love [piper Paddy\] Keenan's playing," he enthuses.

"There's a great energy and a great lightness and a great happiness in his music. This is a great chance for us all to enjoy the music, and enjoy the company too."