Entertainment
Cream of the Traditional Music crop for Tunes In The Church
Spend any length of time in Galway City Centre these days and it’s likely you’ll be brought to a halt by the crowds around Evergreen Health Shop on Mainguard Street watching the nimble Emma O’Sullivan display her sean-nós dancing skills, accompanied by live traditional music.
Emma’s street performance serves as an unparalleled advertisement for Tunes in the Church, a summer-long series of traditional concerts being held in St Nicholas’s Collegiate Church in which the Renvyle dancer plays a key role.
Tunes in the Church, featuring the cream of Ireland’s musicians, was set up some years ago in Galway by Kerry musician Cormac Begley to give audiences and performers a chance to interact in a non-pub, non-session environment.
The venue was the medieval St Nicholas’ Collegiate Church and that still the base. Cormac has since moved to Dublin and now runs Tunes in the Church there at the Unitarian Church on Stephen’s Green, while Emma and Christopher Place have taken responsibility for running the Galway concerts.
Emma is a sublime dancer, whose warm personality comes through in her performances, and who has won awards all over the place, but she laughs as she says she didn’t start dancing until she was 20, when she was studying for a Business and Marketing degree at GMIT.
At the time, she was dating a sean-nós dancer who was so committed to his work that all of their dates were scheduled around his performances and practices.
Emma had grown up in a family steeped in traditional music and dancing and while she had learned neither, she realised when watching her then boyfriend that she had an instinctive feel for sean-nós dancing.
“Something clicked,” she recalls.
“Every step he was doing, I could almost predict what was coming up next. I just got the language.”
Tunes In The Church is running in the city from Monday to Friday throughout July, and seven nights a week in August.
Some of the 100 guest musicians taking part this year include harpists Laoise Kelly and Kathleen Loughnane, flute players Harry Bradley and Gary Hastings, accordion players Brendan Begley, Andrew McNamara and Colm Gannon, singer Niamh Parsons, uilleann pipers Tommy Keane, Maitiú Ó Casaide and Cormac Cannon, and concertina players Cormac Begley and Jacqueline McCarthy. That’s just a sample of the talent.
Each session is broken into two halves, with a core group taking part in the first half.
They include 22-year-old Clarinbridge accordion player Conor Connolly “who is gifted and has an old head”, says Emma. He has a lot of tunes from South and East Galway and is able to put these in context for the audience, being a natural storyteller, she adds. Similarly, with harpist Úna Ní Fhlanagáin, who has a background in music education.
The numbers attending Tunes in the Church this year are up on last summer with a mix of foreign and Irish tourists. Emma describes Tunes in the Church as an evening of “amazing music, fully acoustic, in a relaxed, zen-like atmosphere”, and says it’s a chance to engage with “the cream of the crop” in a unique way.
Tickets are €15 per person and include a tour of the historic medieval church.
Fore more about Tunes In The Church see this week’s Galway City Tribune digital edition here or download our app.
Folk duo Niall Teague and Pádraic Joyce are launching their new album What Will We Be, a blend of folk, Americana and acoustic music, this Friday, May 19, at 8pm in An Taibhdhearc.
The success of their well-received 2020 release Taobh le Taobh, as well as recent successes at the Pan Celtic and Oireachtas Song Contests, spurred the duo on to record this new album which represents many years of collaboration and musical development.
It features Niall and Pádraic on vocals, harmonies, and acoustic guitars, Maidhc Ó hÉanaigh on double bass and Neil Fitzgibbon on fiddle. The catchy title track, What Will We Be, features contributions from percussionist Jim Higgins (The Stunning, Christy Moore, Paul Brady) and haunting, driving melodies on vocals, guitar, and fiddle.
Themes of love and hope are woven through Come Away with Me which features interplay between piano and fiddle as well as rich vocal harmonies.
People, places, and broken dreams are celebrated and lamented on Martin and Tom, Guitar Gold, Memories of You and Achill Island. The influence of David Henry Thoreau’s novel Walden features on the tracks Simple and Wise and Walden, with the beauty of nature, escape and simple pleasures at their core.
The album moves from minimalistic folk ballads such as Galway Ghost to swirling, string-laden arrangements on the song Neptune, both of which are influenced by maritime tales from Galway. Much of the work on this album was supported by the Arts Council, including work with musical arranger Eoin Corcoran and the string ensemble Treo.
The album will be launched this Friday, May 19, at 8pm in an Taibhdhearc. Tickets €22, plus booking fee at Eventbrite.ie.
Dunmore is the place to be this weekend for lovers of traditional music, as the Galway County Fleadh will take place there from this Friday, May 19, to Sunday, May 23.
It is 10 years since Dunmore last hosted a fleadh and the local Comhaltas branch, which has re-formed since Covid, is looking forward to facilitating this gathering of music, song, dance and craic.
The official Opening Concert will take place in Dunmore Town Hall this Friday at 8pm with the acclaimed Mulcahy family from Limerick. Mick, Louise and Michelle are well known throughout the country, thanks to their live performances, television appearances and numerous CDs. They were the winners of the TG4 Gradam Ceoil Grúpa Ceoil Award for 2023. Tickets for their concert can be purchased on the door and a great night of music is promised.
Two days of competitions will kick off this Saturday at the town’s Community School, with more than 1,500 competitors taking part. Participants will be hoping to qualify for the Connacht Fleadh 2023, which will be held in Ballina, County Mayo, from June 23 to July 2.
Competitions for those aged Under 10, Under 12 and Under 15 will be held in a large variety of instruments on Saturday, as well as in singing and Comhrá Gaeilge. Sunday’s competitions will be for the Under 18 and Over 18 ages groups, as well as in dancing.
On both days a large entry is expected for Grúpaí Cheoil and Céilí Band competitions across all age groups.
Seventeen Comhaltas branches from across Galway will have participants in this weekend’s competitions, which will result in a large number of visitors to the Dunmore area.
Members of the public are welcome to attend the competitions, which offer a great opportunity to hear and see the talent on display. There will be sessions in local pubs over the weekend as well and everybody is welcome to attend these.
For more information on the County Fleadh, go to www.galwaycomhaltas.ie.
Music for Galway’s concert with renowned Swiss pianist Cédric Pescia which had been due to take place on April 27 but which had to be deferred, will now take place next Tuesday, May 23, at 8pm, in the Emily Anderson Concert Hall at the University of Galway.
This concert of German classics with Bach at its core, will brings the Bach element of Music for Galway’s 41st season to an end.
This world-class pianist who won the famous Gina Bachauer International Artists Piano Competition, has a repertoire that spans many eras from baroque to contemporary and he is widely known for his elaborate programmes. Cédric Pescia describes music as ‘language and movement at the same time’.
Audiences will have a chance to experience his soft, clear touch as he performs a programme for solo piano that will include classics such as Schumann’s popular Waldszenen (Forest Scenes), a suite of nine short pieces, and the penultimate of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, No. 31. These pieces will be interspersed with French Suites by Bach.
■ Ticket for Cédric Pescia’s concert are available at www.musicforgalway.ie, or by phone 091 705962 and on the door on the night. They cost €20/€18. The price for fulltime students of all ages is €6 while MfG Friends can avail of the friends’ rate of €16.
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