Saturday 28th October
Afternoon Concert
Featuring:
Mairead and Deirdre Hurley with John Blake
Pádraic Keane, Páraic MacDonnchadha and MacDara Ó Faoláin
Tara Viscardi and Robert Harvey
Ivy Suite – The Crown Hotel, Cricklewood Broadway
Doors 2pm
Tickets: £10 General Admission/ £6 U18s
Please note, special offer weekend tickets also available for £40 on IMDL’s Eventbrite page
Sisters Mairéad and Deirdre Hurley grew up in a musical household in Ballymote, Co. Sligo, immersed in the music of their locality from a young age. Mairéad has performed on stages and taught concertina in Ireland, the UK, across Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. In 2016, Mairéad, John Blake and Nathan Gourley released a trio album entitled The Truckley Howl.
Flautist and singer Deirdre has also performed extensively at home and abroad, including appearances in Áras an Uachtaráin, Liberty Hall, and further afield in Switzerland, Lithuania and Slovakia. She appears on The Thursday Sessions album released by The Cobblestone Pub. She has been a featured artist at Cruinniu na bhFlúit, NPU’s Session with the Pipers, as well as at the Frank Harte and Sean-Nós Cois Life singing festivals.
In 2021, Mairéad and Deirdre were invited to contribute to the Drawing from the Well series created by the Irish Traditional Music Archive (ITMA). Their numerous television appearances include Slí na mBeaglaoich on TG4 in 2021, along with Mairéad’s husband John Blake on guitar, who joins them on stage at the Festival.
Born into a great musical family, Uilleann piper Pádraic Keane hails from Maree, Co. Galway. A tutor at many music festivals in Ireland and abroad, in 2011 he was awarded TG4 Young Musician of the Year Award. He has toured America as a soloist with The Irish Chamber Orchestra and has collaborated with Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, RTÉ Concert and RTÉ Symphony Orchestras. Pádraic has toured Europe with the dance show Ragús and worked with Galway’s theatre and arts groups – An Taibhdhearc, Branar and Macnas. Pádraic features on albums including The Rolling Wave – by Na Píobairí Uilleann, Tunes in the Church and Rogha Raelach. In 2022, he released the highly acclaimed solo piping album entitled In Full Tune.
Páraic Mac Donnchada
The son of renowned Connemara sean nós singer, Seán Mac Donnchada, banjo player Páraic was born in Ahascra, Galway. Páraic played alongside fellow East Galway musicians, Paddy Carty (flute), Conor Tully (fiddle) and Frank Hogan (bouzouki) for many years and acknowledges Paddy Fahey, Paddy Carty and Conor Tully as the principal influences on his style. He is particularly admired for the subtlety of his playing and is regarded as one of Ireland’s finest banjo players. He has held a long association with the Feakle Festival, where he released his debut album, Not Before Time… 39 Years in the Making, in 2018.
MacDara Ó Faoláin is a multi-instrumentalist and instrument maker from An Rinn, County Waterford. On his main instrument, bouzouki, he has performed and recorded with some of the best musicians in Irish Traditional Music including Páraic MacDonnchadha, Derek Hickey,
The Friel Sisters, Caoimhín and Seán Ó Fearghail, Victoria Pierce and Nell Ní Chróinín. His intimate knowledge of harmony and gentle instrumental technique come together to create his own unique style of accompaniment on the bouzouki.
Beo is a new, live recorded album from Pádraic Keane, Páraic MacDonnchadha and Macdara Ó Faoláin – inspired by coming together to play ‘flat tuned’ sessions at Scoil Samhraidh Willie Clancy.
Hailing from the Beara Peninsula in the South-West of Ireland, Tara Viscardi is an Irish traditional/folk, baroque and classical harpist. Tara has performed and recorded in venues including Wigmore Hall and Abbey Road Studios in London as well as the National Concert Hall, Áras an Uachtaráin and the Mansion House in Dublin. A graduate of the Royal College of Music London, Civica Scuola di Musica Claudio Abbado Milan and TU Dublin Conservatoire, performances have taken her across Ireland, the UK, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Belgium and Hong Kong. She has collaborated with many artists across different genres and has ongoing projects with her baroque/folk group Nobody’s Jig, saxophonist Robert Finegan and flautist Robert Harvey.
Robert Harvey is a highly regarded flautist from Mountrath, Co. Laois. In 2020, Robert released his critically acclaimed solo flute album Feochán. He has toured internationally with Dónal Lunny’s band Cíorras, the Traditional Arts Collective, The Katerina Garcia Band and The National Folk Orchestra of Ireland. Robert’s first book, Feadail, exploring the whistling tradition in Ireland will be published in 2023 by Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Éireann. Robert recently completed PhD research on Traditional Composition in the East Galway Style, is a music lecturer at Trinity College Dublin and DCU, and is a well-established teacher of flute, tin whistle, whistling and lilting.
Robert and Tara’s new BEARA project features music collected and composed on the Beara Peninsula alongside contemporary compositions inspired by the area.