Innovative Lúnasa keep their trad sound fresh

Groove Tube with Jimi McDonnell

Dynamic and intriguing in concert, Lúnasa will play Monroe’s Live on Thursday, June 18. This masterful traditional band are Kevin Crawford (flutes, low whistles and tin whistles), Trevor Hutchinson (double bass), Ed Boyd (guitar), Cillian Vallely (uilleann pipes and low whistles) and Seán Smyth (fiddle and low whistles).

Seán, a longtime resident of Galway, is taking a break from a hectic schedule that sees him combine being a GP in Ennis and a member of a successful touring and recording band. However, he will be taking part in this home-town show.

Has it been hard to juggle the two careers?

“I’ve grown up doing both, really,” says the graduate of NUIG. “Since college I’ve combined both, so to me it’s a very natural thing. Outside music and medicine, there wouldn’t be much that I have time for in the scheme of things. There wouldn’t be very much television or anything like that, I suppose.

“In Ireland, there are a lot of GPs who combine music and medicine very successfully,” he adds. “We’re told, on many different levels, that music and medicine are related. They’ve both got to do with communicating with people and expressing yourself. I think they’re very closely related there.”

Still, Seán is certainly kept on his toes by the paths he has chosen to take.

“The last tour I was on, we were in Alaska, Chicago, the West Coast of America, down to Australia and then we came back to DC,” he says. “After all that, I got off the plane on a Monday and I was back in on the Thursday to the GP’s surgery.”

Interestingly, Seán feels both jobs bring him peace of mind.

“Onstage, you’re completely free of medicine, and as a GP, you’re completely free of the world of Lúnasa. For me, it’s been very complementary. Breda and Cora, my sisters, are also doctors and musicians. Maybe it’s a genetic thing!”

Lúnasa formed in 1997 and, from the outset, aimed to stand apart from other emerging traditional bands in that they had no vocalist. Instead, they focused on the purity and energy of the music.

“We had to work very hard to make the whole concept interesting,” Seán says. “I grew up playing those tunes, from my father and grandfather. I wanted to play the music I was in love with. They were the tunes that were played at the sessions in Galway and up with my father in Mayo.

“That’s what’s given me the most satisfaction, standing on a stage in Tokyo and playing tunes from the West of Ireland that I grew up with,” he adds.

When Lúnasa started playing, word quickly spread about the quintet and they’ve been in demand at home and abroad ever since.

“Once people hooked into it, then the word spread. Things went very well for us. When we started we were lucky to be playing to audiences outside of Ireland. And then we were playing the heartland of Dublin and Galway, and other places. So were getting a good mix of reviews from people who were Irish and non-Irish.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.