The Irish diaspora finds a new
outlet
 By Joe Mullarkey
EMIGRANT Music — Lost and Found is a new showcase featuring the
culture of the Irish Diaspora.
Fiddler Máire Breatnach, Garry Walsh on flute, melodeon player
Dave Hennessey and guitarist Dónal Clancy have joined together
to take listeners on a unique musical journey.
As Irish emigrants journeyed overseas they brought with them the music
and song of their ancestors — a vital source of comfort and reference
to a culture left behind.
To explore this emotive musical legacy Emigrant Music — Lost and
Found features four of Ireland’s finest traditional musicians.
Garry Walsh will join the incomparable Máire Breatnach on flute,
melodeon-player Dave Hennessy and the New-York based multi-instrumentalist
Dónal Clancy. Combining their rich musical repertoires the ensemble
can be heard on a Music Network tour of Ireland from May 12-21.
Music Network tours are funded by the Arts Council and are presented in
association with RTÉ Lyric FM.
Máire Breatnach is recognised globally as a musician of exceptional
calibre.
An accomplished violinist and composer she has participated in almost
all of the leading Irish music recordings of recent years playing a variety
of instruments including fiddle, viola, whistle, piano, keyboards and
guitar.
She is also widely known as an arranger, producer and composer of original
works and many outstanding film scores.
Garry Walsh was raised in Manchester by Irish emigrant parents who brought
with them to their new home a wealth of traditional Irish music.
His great-grandfathers and grandfathers as well as his father played traditional
music.
Garry himself was taught to play the whistle by his father at the age
of 10 — progressing to the flute in his early 20S.
Much of the music he was taught originated from the birth counties of
his parents — Louth and Cork — and his 2004 debut album Uncovered
boasts many of these forgotten tunes.
Garry returned to Ireland and now lives in Cork where he is very much
a part of the strong traditional music scene there.
Dave Hennessy also has Cork connections and is widely regarded as one
of the best players of melodeon.
A former member of the much-beloved band Any Old Time which he formed
in the 1990s with fiddle-player Matt Cranitch and guitarist, vocalist
and banjo-player Mick Daly, Dave recorded three critically acclaimed albums
with the group.
Dónal Clancy was born in Canada and spent his early childhood there
before his family settled back in Co. Waterford in 1983.
The son of Liam Clancy of Clancy Brothers fame it was in Waterford that
Dónal started to learn traditional Irish music and he received
his first guitar at the age of eight.
A multi-instrumentalist his deft playing on guitar, five-string banjo,
bouzouki and mandolin added a new colour and texture to the music he played
as a member of such acclaimed bands as the Eileen Ivers Band, Solas and
most recently Danú.
|
