Category: Ireland
Vyvienne Long: Let go
Vyvienne Long is a Dublin born classically trained cellist, pianist and singer songwriter who started her career playing in various chamber music ensembles around Europe before being recruited by Irish singer songwriter Damien Rice to tour with his band. Somewhere along that great tour, I…
Lisa Hannigan: Knots
The acoustic version “Knots” comes from Irish singer Lisa Hannigan’s second album Passenger released in 2011 and this intimate acoustic performance of the song as part of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts really brings to the fore the singer’s warm voice and talent. As soon as her…
Lisa Hannigan: Pistachio
Lisa Hannigan is an Irish indie folk singer and songwriter who started her musical career in 2002 as the musical partner of Damien Rice. But since going solo in 2007, she has grown into a very original and successful independent artist. Released on her own…
Steve Cooney: O’Farrell’s Welcome to Limerick
Steve Cooney is an Australian guitar player, arranger, composer and poet who has been a towering influence on the contemporary Irish music scene ever since moving to Ireland from his native Melbourne in 1981. A rock and blues musician originally, Steve Cooney first joined seminal…
Sam Jackson: The Gramophone
Sam Jackson is a Dublin based pianist, but when I heard “The Gramophone” for the first time on the radio, I mistook it for what could have been a track from an early recording from the Esbjörn Svensson Trio. Sam Jackson’s music is of the same calibre.…
Gerry Diver: Music for Tape Loop
Multi-instrumentalist Gerry Diver based the Speech Project on several interviews of Irish musicians and singers such as Shane MacGowan, Christy Moore, Damian Dempsey, Martin Hayes and Danny Meehan. It also features archival recordings of Galway accordion player Joe Cooley. The various musical pitches of the musicians’…
About Spellbinding Music
Why is it that a particular piece of music, a tune or a song will move us in such a way that it will stop us in our tracks, send shivers up our spine or give us goose bumps? Spiritual or secular musical traditions such…