www.gradam.ie

Women lead the way in this year’s Gradam Ceoil TG4 accolades, as ‘Musician of the Year’, ‘Young Musician of the Year’ and ‘Composer of the Year’ are awarded to highly-talented female musicians.
Harper Laoise Kelly from Westport, Co. Mayo is announced as TG4’s ‘Musician of the Year’, and is one of the youngest recipients of the main award to date. Laoise will be awarded the title at TG4’s Gradam Ceoil gala concert which will take place in Belfast’s Waterfront Hall next February.  She is one of Ireland’s most significant harpers of her generation and uses a style of playing combining the techniques of fingerpads in the bass and fingnails in the melody on a thirty-four gut strung Paddy Cafferky harp. Laoise was a founding member of the traditional group Bumblebees, who recorded two albums, Bumblebees (1997) and Buzzin (1999) and who toured extensively across Ireland, the UK, Europe, the US and Canada. She was also a founding member of Fiddletree, a folk group from the US, Ireland, Cape Breton and Scotland, who all play instruments made from the same tree and who have released two albums, The Fiddletree (2011) and The Unfathomable Menagerie (2013).
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www.nch.ie

Martin Hayes, fiddle | Cormac McCarthy, piano | Kate Ellis, cello | Kyle Sanna, guitar | Brian Donnellan, bouzouki harmonium, concertina

Guests: David Power, uileann pipes | Síle Denver, sean nós singer, harp

Saturday 14 / Sunday 15 March 2020. National Concert Hall.

Tickets €36, €32.50 & €27.50. On Sale 15 November 2019 at 10am www.nch.ie

“… music isn’t about perfection. For me it’s about heart, feeling, trust, freedom, communication and true aliveness in the moment” Martin Hayes

Following on from the success of The Gloaming, the National Concert Hall is delighted to present the debut concerts by Martin Hayes, one of the world’s most celebrated fiddle players and a key figure in Irish traditional music, and his new band the Common Ground Ensemble, Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 March 2020 8pm. Although rooted in Irish traditional music the ensemble possesses a wealth of talent spanning improvisation, arrangement, jazz, avant-garde and cutting edge contemporary classical.
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