Grada are gearing up to record with bluegrass icon Tim O’Brien during their next foray Stateside. Apparently the album will be recorded in Nashville and is set for release later in the year, at which point they’ll also announce details of a World Tour. Details so far are sketchy, although there’s a gap in the band’s schedule between the last of their gigs in Montana on August 11 and a date at Nashville’s Station Inn on August 22 – it would seem likely that that’s when the deed will be done.

For further details, you could always keep an eye on their website or MySpace page (you have to applaud an Irish traditional act that has Pixies and Flight of the Conchords in their top friends). Having previously worked with musicians Vyvienne Long and Dave Hingerty, they have a track record of collaborations with musicians from beyond the trad gene pool. In this instance, a hook-up with Grammy-winner O’Brien is sure to yield plenty of intriguing moments.
Temple Bar TradFest is taking a trip overseas – specifically the Festival Interceltique in Lorient in Northern France. The festival has long been regarded as one of the highpoints of the trad calendar and since its inception in 1969 has become one of the world’s largest gathering of Celtic cultures. Musicians travel from Ireland, Britain, France, Spain and as far away as Australia to play in the 10-day event. The festival programme is awash with activities, including spectacular pipe band performances, concerts, singing and dancing workshops.
Running this year from Friday July 31 through to Sunday August 9, the Interceltique Festival will this year feature an Irish Pavilion.
Last January, the festival’s director Lisardo Lombardio visited the Temple Bar Trad Fest, and one of the top Tradfest acts, Paddy Keenan and Tommy O Sullivan will this year perform at the festival in Lorient. The two festivals have developed close ties and the Temple Bar TradFest has decided to strategically develop an on-the-ground presence in Lorient to help grow the overseas audience for the Temple Bar event.
Live performances will take place daily in the Irish pavilion stage and information on the Temple Bar TradFest and on Ireland will be distributed to visitors. Each day in the Irish Pavilion,  Irish dancing workshops, pipe band exhibitions, seisúns and evening concerts will be held, as the area becomes a showcase for Irish music and for Ireland in general.
Running alongside the World Fleadh in Castlebar at the start of August are Ireland’s Music Awards, the brainchild of Eric Cunningham, the man behind the World Fleadh itself.
In his producer’s message on the Awards website Eric notes, “It seemed a shame that before now the artists and acts who continually excelled within the Irish traditional, folk and Celtic music genres were not recognised and honoured publicly and annually at a ceremony in Ireland. After all, much of this music emanates from Ireland. So we are delighted to fill this void by producing the inaugural presentation of Ireland’s Music Awards.
Similar award ceremonies have been held in the past which unfortunately were discontinued, while there are other awards at present which deal solely with the more purist aspect of traditional music or refer to Irish traditional, folk and Celtic music in a token way.
Ireland’s Music Awards, however, is to be an awards ceremony where the best performers, as voted by the general public, will be honoured year after year in each of the aforementioned classes and where both conventional and unorthodox styles have a platform".
This is, of course, the first outing for these awards — and obviously there’s always next year — but on the face of it, ‘conventional’ is giving ‘unorthodox’ a bit of a drubbing in the nomination stakes.
Unless, that is, you’re talking about the Recording Of The Year category where they’ve taken the fairly unconventional route of only having one nominee, so I guess Sharon Shannon and Mundy will have plenty of time to polish the acceptance speech. Also fairly unorthodox, now that I think of it, is the fact that organiser, Eric Cunningham is in the running for an award himself. As a member of Frankie Gavin and Hibernian Rhapsody, he’s a nominee in the Best Crossover Act category, where he goes head to head against the likes of Kila, The Chieftains, Mike McGoldrick and Eileen Ivers and Sharon Shannon, all of which leaves the question hanging of ‘crossover’ from what to what?
In the main categories, Best Irish Traditional Group is the preserve of the old warhorses. The nominees are Dervish, Altan, Lunasa, Four Men And A Dog, The Chieftains, Solas and Sharon Shannon.
Not that you could argue against any of those, but that list could have been compiled last century. Meanwhile the likes of Beoga, Grada, Teada, Slide, Liadan and the Dave Munnelly Band have been confined to the baby slopes of the Best Young Irish Traditional Act category, not to be confused with the Best Newcomer category.
There are also, and we start to get into Jesuitical divisions here, categories for Best Celtic Group, Best Overseas Act (Europe), Best Overseas Act (USA / Canada), Best Folk Group – where even more confusingly the Wolfe Tones and Derek Warfield and the Young Wolfe Tones are both nominated, as well as the usual Best Male Vocalist, Best Female Vocalist and Best Instrumentalist categories. I’m gutted, I’ll admit, that there’s no Best Hot Press Columnist category. However, there is a Services to Industry Award for which they’re openly seeking nominations. I’d like to thank...