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Another of Music Network’s ‘Best of Irish’ traditional music tours hits the road this month. This season’s theme is ‘The Next Generation’, featuring a selection of bright young talents. Dubliner Gavin Whelan got interested in trad during childhood visits to Doolin, when he was lucky enough to receive lessons from the late Micho Russell. A founding member of the band Dál Riada, he brought out his debut solo tin whistle recording in 2001, winning high praise from critics. Louth fiddler Zoë Conway took up the fiddle at age eight and by her mid-teens was competing and winning in both classical feiseanna and traditional All-Ireland competitions; since then, she’s been a soloist with the Irish Chamber Orchestra and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, and recorded her debut CD in 2002. Aogán Lynch is a concertina player hailing from Cork. A recipient of the TG4 Young Musician of the Year award in 1999, he’s currently a member of the band Slide, who’ve toured extensively on the back of their two albums The Flying Pig and Harmonic Motion. Completing the line-up is Cork-born guitarist Donncha Moynihan, a founding member of both Calico and The Red Hat Band. The tour kicks off in Monaghan on May 11 and finishes up at the Riverbank Arts Centre in Newbridge on May 20; for full dates, see .
Inspired by the sound of Ralph McTell singing ‘The Streets Of London’, Armagh-born Denise Hagan wrote her first song, ‘The Tangerine Moon’, at age 16. Now, 11 years later, it’s the title track of her debut album, just released by Universal Music Ireland. Backing her on the CD are most of the musicians from the Mary Black Band, which Denise had admired from her childhood. The album was recorded at Grouse Lodge studios in Westmeath and The Cauldron studio in Dublin, and mastered in New York. One of the tracks is a duet with Finbar Furey, and Hagan will be guesting with Furey during his current tour, which includes a Vicar Street show on May 13 as well as dates in Derry, Belfast, Cork, Longford, Mullingar, Tralee and Bundoran.
Iarla Ó Lionáird takes a break from touring with the Afrocelts to make a special guest appearance with contemporary classical composer Gavin Bryars and his Ensemble in Christchurch Cathedral on May 15. Tickets are available from Ticketmaster, Claddagh Records and City Discs, and advance booking is recommended. The concert will feature world premières of Bryars’ Eight Irish Madrigals series, based on the writings of J.M. Synge.
In the last instalment of this column, I mentioned the forthcoming release on Nashville’s Compass Records of The Landing Step, the latest album by Gráda. As I write, the lads are on their way back from Australia, following appearances at the Brisbane World Beat Festival, Australia’s famous Port Fairy Festival, and concerts at the Sydney Opera House and the Auckland Town Hall. Their Irish tour gets under way on May 6 with a concert in Kilkenny’s Watergate Theatre, continues through Limerick, Waterford, Galway, Cork, Kildare, Mayo, hits Dublin for a Vicar St. gig on May 21, and heads on to Derry, Clonakilty, Ennis, Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon and Longford. Then it’s over to the UK for a few days, and back to Westmeath on June 12. The fun never stops ....
For a while now, I’ve been promising you a sampling from the submissions to the Special Committee on the Traditional Arts. Here’s a small chunk to start with:
FACÉ (Filí, Amhránaithe & Ceoltóirí na hÉireann), a 275-member supportive organisation for traditional artists, used its submission to highlight the “bread and butter issues” that affect traditional musicians in their daily lives. Pointing out that “unscrupulous business people” often take advantage of the fact that the courts are too expensive an option for artists who haven’t been paid for work carried out or royalties due, FACRs Steve Cooney suggested that “a form of redress, a complaints or arbitration/conciliation board for the arts needs to be instituted, one with real power to compel defaulters to pay.”
Another common problem was the increasing difficulty of obtaining US work visas for Stateside tours: “A group may pay $5,000 visa fees in advance, wait four months, and then have to cancel the tour at the last minute because visas didn’t come through in time... There’s many the Irish musician who played for State functions, lending the aura of cultural respectability to the occasion, and so I believe the State should designate traditional musicians to be ‘Cultural Artists’ instead of ‘Entertainers’. In this way, travel, amongst other things, might be more easily facilitated.”
The FACÉ submission goes on to suggest that codes of fair practice be established in relation to venues, promoters and record companies; that electronic tagging of CDs for radio and television royalty monitoring be implemented, as “traditional musicians lose tens of thousands of euros every year because of incomplete monitoring”; that a body similar to Aosdána be created for traditional arts practitioners; that taxation exemptions be granted to traditional musicians, singers and poets; that a fund be set up to assist elderly traditional artists, taking its inspiration from the Japanese concept of ‘National Living Treasures’; that stronger links be established with appropriate bodies in Northern Ireland; and that “there must be regulation of basic minimum conditions at gigs”.
In support of this last point, Cooney tells of playing at a function in Dublin Castle and being refused either a glass of water or a cup of tea, while the invited guests he was entertaining were abundantly wined and dined: “The official with the three castles on his blazer said that he had ‘no authority to let us have tea’. It was a surreal feeling, all of us on stage with our parched throats, playing traditional music to an audience full of well-fed drunks.”
More to come next time round…

Musicians and singers with news to share can e-mail Sarah on [email protected]