Listening to Christmas

Winter. Whether Christmas is your holiday or not, it is a time which invites connection and reflection, solitude and community. Here is music to go along with those ideas... take a listen.

Here’s a song in Irish -- it is called Don oíche úd i mBeithil/That Night in Bethlehem. Perhaps you will not understand the words, but you will get the idea of reflection and hope. It is performed here by Altan, whose most recent album is The Gap of Dreams.

To pick up the pace a bit, here is Emily Smith with the lively Little Road to Bethlehem. You may find on her album Songs for Christmas.

The song Fine Winter’s Night draws on the idea of cold nights which yet hold bright stars, and darkness which draws us in to gather and connect. You may find it recorded on the album called Fine Winter’s Night, by Matt and Shannon Heaton.

You may also wish to see
Christmas, Reflections, and Travel at Perceptive Travel
Further thoughts (and music ideas) thinking about December at Wandering Educators
Candles in the window at Christmas time here at Music Road

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Ireland's Music: Altan: The Gap of Dreams

The landscapes of Donegal suggest mystery and legend. There is connection and there is solitude. There is history and there is the moment as immediate as the blooming of a flower or the rise of a wave up on the shore.

The music of the band Altan holds all these as well. Their story as a band began in this far northwestern part of the island of Ireland. Though they have traveled the world with their music, it is to Donegal the band returned to record their album The Gap of Dreams. 

Their selection of song and tune draws in the many strands of life, landscape, and history. Édaín O’Donnell’s album sleeve art work helps set the stage for the music.

There are songs in both Irish and English, some recently written and some handed down in the tradition.

The tunes, too, come from varied sources, recent and traditional, learned from fellow musicians and written by members of the band. There’s as much story in the conversation among fiddle guitar, bouzouki, keyboard, and accordion in the tunes as there is in the word and melody of the songs. I

t is a story of landscape, life, love, and imagination. When she was growing up in Donegal, founding member of Altan Mairéad Ni Mhaonaigh recalled, she’d sometimes ask older players where they got a tune. I heard the fairies sing it, they would tell her. That became part of the idea behind the music choices and the title for The Gap of Dreams. 

Altan is Ni Mhaonaigh on fiddle and voice, Martin Tourish on piano accordion, Ciaran Curran on Bouzouki, Mark Kelly and Daithi Sproule on guitars and vocals, with Tommy McLaughlin sitting in on keyboards. For Gap of Dreams, Mairead’s daughter Nia Byrne and Mark’s son Sam Kelly each contribute an original tune to the recrding. They play on them on the album too, Nia on fiddle and Sam on concertina.  

With the title slip jig The Gap of Dreams composed by Mairéad, the tunes from Nia and Sam -- Nia’s Tune and The Beekeeper -- comprise the lively and engaging set which begins the album. 

Several of the tune sets pair music from the tradition with recently composed pieces. One such is Seán sa Cheo / Tuar / Oíche Fheidhmiúil (A Spirited Night), in which Seán sa Cheo (John in the Mist) comes from the tradition and Tuar and Oíche Fheidhmiúil are tunes accordion player Martin Tourish has written. 

Each of the tunes in The Tullaghan Lasses set -- the others are The Cameronian  and The Pigeon on the Gate-- come from the tradition, albeit in the different ways. The first is one often played by great Donegal fiddler John Doherty, which may be a very old tune he had learned from local sources. The Cameronian came over from Scotland -- trade, family, history, and geography  have made many connections between Donegal and Scotland. The Pigeon on the Gate is a tune which shows up in Celtic lands and has crossed the ocean to North America as well. It is a well known tune to Donegal traditional players. This set, in fact, is a fine example of Donegal style fiddle playing.

The gentle reel Port Alex, which Mark Kelly wrote for his nephew, draws in strands of quiet steadiness in journey, with no words spoken or sung.

Bacach Shíl Andaí is a gentle song, too, with words from a nursery rhyme well known in Donegal. The warmth of Mairéad’s voice in the song well suits that idea.

Several of the other songs Mairéad has chosen are a bit more dramatic. There is a lost and wandering lover pining for his lady through the landscape of Donegal’s northernmost place in Dark Inishowen. An Bealach Seo ‘Tá Romham (This Road Ahead of Me) moves with a sense of journey and hope, perhaps in the physical world and perhaps through that gap of dreams to the otherworld the journey of this album explores. Either way, Mairéad sings it and Altan plays it in service to the ideas of journey and connection. The song was written by Moya Brennan of Clannad along with her father Aodh Ó Dúgáin.

The song Altan have chosen to bring The Gap of Dreams to a close is a collaboration in a different way. Songwriter and scholar Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin who comes from the east coast of Ireland in the Oriel region, heard Shetland fiddler Tom Anderson’s tune Da Slockit Light. It inspired to write Fare Thee Well a Stór. The song is about love and leaving, and, in Altan’s playing with Mairéad’ singing, it suggests the landscapes of Donegal as well as those where the music originated.

That evocation of landscape through voice and instrument is woven through each of the tracks in The Gap of Dreams. Indeed that is one of the gifts Altan always brings to their listeners, a gift that, some thirty years from when they first began, the band members continue to give in creative and thoughtful ways.

You may also wish to see
Ireland’s music:Altan: The Widening Gyre
Scotland’s music: Julie Fowlis: Alterum
Ireland’s music: Aine MinogueIn the Name of Stillness  
Music of Ireland: Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin Songs of the Scribe

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Ireland's Music: four albums to explore

The island of Ireland is a small place, really. For all that, it has landscape both dramatic -- think the Slieve League, Bloody Foreland, the Cliffs of Moher -- and quiet, such as the countryside near Saul where Saint Patrick walked, the green fields of Monaghan, and the backroads of County Louth. There are lively cities and quiet towns, winding roads and mountains wrapped in mist. Condensed into two countries and one small island, these are aspects of landscape that call forth dreaming, connecting, and creating. This is part of the reason Ireland is known as the land of saints of scholars -- and of musicians.

As you might be thinking about, dreaming of, or making your own way across the landscapes of Ireland, here is music you will want to include in your soundtrack for such a visit, whether you travel through geography, memory, or imagination:

The members of the band Danu take in quite a few places in Ireland in their own geography: musicians come from east and west and north and south of the country. So do the songs they have chosen for the album Buan. The word means lasting in Irish, an right enough title for a recording that among other things is meant to celebrate twenty years since Danu began. There are waltzes, marches, hornpipes, and reels, and songs aplenty too, with words in both English and Irish. There is music from the tradition and music newly composed, some of that from Danu’s own folk. Listen out especially for Donal Clancy singing the outlaw ballad Willie Crotty that tells a story of times past that resonates with today’s events, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh with John Spillane’s powerful emigration song passage West, and the whole of the band on the slides and reels that make up the Kerry to Donegal set.

The musicians of Altan are well grounded in the music and landscape of their home place of Donegal in Ireland’s far northwest. They have delighted audiences from Asia to Austraila with it, and for their album The Widening Gyre they decided to explore the connections of their music with the the music of the mountain south in the United States. That’s an interesting journey, with song and tune that draw on both of those traditions and on what connects them. There’s a set beginning with Buffalo Girls from the bluegrass side of things and taking a fast paced path to the fiery fiddle style of Donegal, a set which the the musicians say evolved from them sitting around swapping tunes in the studio. Plenty of American folk musician guests on the album, which was recorded at Compass Records studio in Nashville, among them Mary Chapin Carpenter, Bruce Molsky and Alison Brown. It is Altan’s sound which anchors the vision, though. For a fine example of that check out Altan founder, fiddle player and singer Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh’s duet with bluegrass master time O’Brien on Gypsy Davey/The House Carpenter.

Speaking of vision, the one singer and flute player Nuala Kennedy had for her album Behave the Bravest was to include quite a bit of music sourced from areas near where she grew up, Dundalk in County Louth in the east of Ireland. The ten tracks on the recording offer that, with a fine balance of song and tune, and Kennedy also lets in hints of her travels with her music and longtime residence in Scotland along the way. Listen out especially for the Fair Hill of Killen, a love song in Irish with lyrics by Ulster poet Peadar O’Doirnin, the emigration song Lovely Armoy, and the set of reels which begins with The Glen Where the Deer Is.

Cathie Ryan sources the songs she writes and the songs she chooses from contemporary and traditional sources in light of her heritage as the first generation daughter of parents who came from Ireland to America, and in light of her own path as an adult which has seen her live for years in the United States and equally years in Ireland. That dual respect is evident in the music on her album Through Wind and Rain. The Wishing Well is a song with an Irish melody framing words Ryan wrote herself, while Fare Thee Well finds Ryan adding and changing verses to an Appalachian tune to reflect her own take on the story the song tells. The title comes from a thoughful song about friendship from Kate Rusby. Mo Nion O, written by Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh is a song about sharing hopes and wishes with a child, so it seems only right that Ryan kept some of the verses in Irish and with Ní Mhaonaigh’s blessing, translated some into English. Speaking of blessing. Ryan’s take on May the Road Rise to Meet You may give tou a whole new thought about the song, and the Irish blessing which inspired Roger and Camilla McGuinn to write it.

Photograph of Altan courtesy of the artists; all other photographs by Kerry Dexter. Thank you for respecting copyright.

Several ways to explore Irish music further:
Cara Dillon: A Thousand Hearts
The Clancy Legacy
Matt and Shannon Heaton: Tell You In Earnest

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Love Songs, Love Stories

Love: it is a source of endless reflection, conversation, story, at all times of the year. In the depths of winter love stories are often spun in form of song, shared and told and sung around and passed along again, as the lives and loves of those who handed them on to us join in from the shadows and as we add our own new love songs to the mix. Romantic love (it is near Valentine’s Day as I write) is an endless subject for musicians. They turn their thoughts to other aspects of love as well.

Mairead Ni Mhaoniagh grew up in Donegal, in the far northwest of the island of Ireland. One of her earliest music teachers there was her father Francie Mooney, himself an accomplished fiddler as well as a playwright and man who loved the sea. When her father died, two of Mairead’s friends wrote a song they hoped would help her. Named for a place on the far western edge of Donegal’s coast, it is called Far Beyond Carrickfinn. Mairead recorded it with Altan on their album called The Widening Gyre.

Eddi Reader is a native Scot. For many years though she lived and followed her career in music south of Hadrian’s Wall down in England. Her friend John Douglas -- now her husband -- thought she really belonged back in Scotland. One of the things he did to help her see this idea was write a song called Wild Mountainside. A love song to country and to woman both, you could say. Reader put the song on her album Songs of Robert Burns to show, she says, that great poetry and song are still flourishing in Scotland. It stands just fine in the company.

One snowy winter night, Carrie Newcomer was driving back to her home in Indiana after being away on tour. As she traveled she was taken by seeing lights in the windows of homes set back from the road, lights sent out by people she would never know and yet which lighted her path in more ways than one. She wrote a song drawing on where those thoughts led her called, unsurprisingly, A Light in the Window. Newcomer has recorded the song on her album called A Permeable Life.

Cathie Ryan gives a graceful and understated yet warm and welcoming voice to Rick Kemp's song of connection Somewhere Along the Road. She has recorded it on her album Somewhere Along the Road. A recognition of change and the continuing strength of connection.

Love songs for many situations and seasons....

Photographs by Kerry Dexter. Thank you for respecting copyright.

You may also wish to see
Cara Dillon: A Thousand Hearts
Cathie Ryan: Through Wind and Rain
Music and Mystery: Conversation with Carrie Newcomer

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Ireland's Music: Altan: The Widening Gyre

There’s mystery, legend, and magic in the landscapes of Donegal, in Ireland’s far northwest. There you’ll also find deep community, lively humor, and strong connections to the past. Each of these things makes its way into the music of the band Altan.

For their album The Widening Gyre they chose to explore and express another sort of connection, too, the one that reaches across the ocean to the music of Appalachia and the American south. With this in mind, they traveled to Nashville, to the studios of Compass Records, to record.

The result is a clear and sparkling set of song and tune that interweaves these connected yet distinct ways of sharing and thinking about of music. The members of Altan -- Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh on voice and fiddle, Ciaran Curran on bouzouki, Ciaran Tourish onfiddle, vocals, whistles and low whistle, Dáithí Sproule on guitar and voice, Mark Kelly on guitar and voice, and newest member Martin Tourish on accordion and keyboards -- explore these connections and travels of song in collaboration with longtime musical friends from the American folk scene, among them Bruce Molsky, Tim O’Brien, Garry West (who produced the recording), Natalie Haas, and Alison Brown. “We’ve made lifelong friends through music,” Mairéad says. “ The circle has expanded over the years, and our new album celebrates those relationships.”

The fourteen track disc opens with a set which sets the path for that, taking a journey through a lively tune from Scotland, a reel from the Irish tradition, and an original reel composed by Mairéad. Molsky and Ní Mhaonaigh turn Walt Aldrige’s old timey Americana song No Ash Will Burn into a vocal and instrumental collaboration that unlocks the Celtic nuances of the piece, and although it is a rather sad love song, also calls to mind the partings and stories of those who moved from one place to another in earlier times. Tune For Mairéad and Anna Ní Mhaonaigh is a slow air which was composed some years back by Dáithí Sproule for the birthdays of Mairéad and her sister Anna, and is done here in lovely spare fashion.

White Birds is a quiet piece too, one which evokes travels across land and sea in reality and imagination, with Mary Chapin Carpenter adding in her to voice to Mairéad’s for lyrics written by poet WB Yeats set to music by Fiona Black. Only right to have words by Yeats here; a different Yeats poem is the source the band turned to for the album’s title. “The title The Widening Gyre appeals to us and depicts the spiral of life, widening and embracing the new. It has an innate energy. We think that idea is reflected in the album’s music,” says Mairéad.

That energy is readily apparent in the Buffalo Gals/Leather Britches/Leslie’s Reel set, which evolved from the musicians siting around in the studio swapping tunes. It’s a fast paced event which holds the energy of Appalachian bluegrass along with fiery Donegal style music and creates its own place between. That also holds true of The Triple T, a tune which Ciaran Tourish wrote for his son Thomas and which invited in the talents of musical guests Jerry Douglas on Dobro, Sam Bush on mandolin, Darol Anger on fiddle, Bryan Sutton on guitar, Jim Higgins on bodhran, Stuart Duncan on fiddle, Bryan Sutton on guitar, and Alison Brown on banjo -- an all star jam in deed, and all these fine talents in collaboration in service to the tune.

Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh’s distinctive soprano is as much a hallmark of Altan’s music as are her fiery fiddling and thoughtful compositions. All are in fine evidence here. She sourced the song Má Théann Tú ‘un Aonaigh, which offers advice (in irish) to a young man setting out in the world, from a field recording from the Arranmore Islands in northwest Donegal, while Cuirt Robin Finley/Moladh Shliabh Maoineach has as its substance a love song to a mountain in Donegal. She trades voices and stories with bluegrass/Americana master Tim O’Brien on The House Carpenter/ Gypsy Davy and her slow reel Samhradh and Aniar Aduaidh Jig pair naturally in a set with Martin Tourish’s The Donegal Jig. Far Beyond Carrickfinn is a song composed by Ian Smith and Enda Cullen to help give Mairéad perspective after the death of her father Francie, a himself a fine musician. It is a lasting piece that’s beautifully sung and presented here by Mairéad and Scotland’s Eddi Reader and could indeed apply to journeys of many sorts. “Stars lead the way, as your journey begins...”

There is much more to explore and enjoy. The mountains of Ireland’s northwest and the Americna south, seacoasts and hollows, journeys through them and stories told across time: all these come into play in Altan’s The Widening Gyre.

...and while you are at it, note the fine cover artwork by Édaín O’Donnell.

photographs courtesy of the band, Compass Records, and Colin Park and Joseph Mischyshyn. thank you for respecting copyright

You may also wish to see
The Wild Atlantic Way: Music of Donegal and Derry part of a 4 part series I’ve done for Wandering Educators
Music of Donegal: Altan: The Poison Glen/Gleann Nimhe
Music for the first week in Advent: candle in the window
Alison Brown: The Company You Keep
Tim O'Brien: The Crossing

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Listening to Ireland: Patrick season

Ireland: it is a twenty first century country, to be sure, and yet... the music and the stories, the legends and the landscapes, reach back across time to connect, to share to create, to reassure, to inspire. The music and the stories reach across the world, too, to new landscapes where Ireland’s far flung sons and daughters have made their homes, and to places where the sound of the music is the only connection.

During the spring of the year, Patrick season, folk often turn thoughts and hearts especially to those connections and to the music of Ireland. Here along the Music Road Irish music and the people who make it are a subject of conversation and reflection often, as are those Irish landscapes; you’ll find upwards of three hundred stories on these ideas in our archives.

For your Patrick season enjoyment, here are several to explore

Tommy Sands is from Rostrevor in County Down, just along the border with the Republic. He knows both dark and light sides, both the political side of recent Irish history and how it plays out in day to day life. To hear ways these make part of his music, take a listen to his albums Let the Circle Be Wide and Arising from the Troubles.

Cathie Ryan is first generation Irish American, and has lived long in both countries. Landscape, legend, and story all play their parts in the music she writes herself and what she sources from traditional and contemporary song. Hear this in her recordings Through Wind and Rain and The Farthest Wave.

The four members of T With the Maggies each have careers as members of other ensembles and collaborations. When the four women, who knew each other growing up in Donegal before their music took them along differing paths, got together to create an album, they made a project through which you may hear the wind and water, rugged mountains and hidden glens and crashing waves and tales and history that form Ireland’s far northwest. Learn more about this recording from T With the Maggies.

One of the Maggies on that album is Mairéad Ni Mhaonaigh, singer, fiddle player, and songwriter who is also founding member of the band Altan. They have traveled the world with their music and collaborated with symphony orchestras and American country superstars. Home in Donegal is where they made their album Poison Glen, which they chose to name after an especially lovely spot in their native county. Take a listen to fiery fiddling, graceful singing, and class act ensemble work on Poison Glen.

Mary Black does not always -- or even often -- choose music from Irish tradition. The native Dubliner is brilliant and hearing the stories and poetry, the threads that connect and pull through, in the work of contemporary songwriters, though. Many of her choices are songwriters from Ireland, but whatever she chooses, Black puts her own graceful and very Irish stamp upon it, and adds to the ongoing tradition of class act songs and singers in Ireland. Hear this in Twenty Five Years Twenty Five Songs.

There is more, of course, much more, to the music of Ireland, and I’ve more recordings and conversations with artists waiting in the wings to share with you -- and a book or two in the works as well. Keep in touch here along the Music Road to know more about all that.

Photograph of hillside in Louth, Republic of Ireland, is by Kerry Dexter and is copyrighted. Thank you for respecting this.

You may also wish to see
Women of Ireland: Music
Learning about Irish Music: a bouquet of albums
Julie Fowlis and Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh: Dual

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Robert Burns, Altan, and Mary Black

Words and music have their own unique connection. There is plenty of music of all sorts with no words attached, of course, as there is poetry which may hold its own rhythms but does little to evoke melody. Then there are lyrics which stand on their without music, and those that don’t, as well as poems which have been set, successfully and less to, to music. Not to mention the melodies of familiar songs which are sometimes challenging to hear without adding the words in your head as you listen.

These are all tools of the artist, whether that artist is poet or songwriter or composer or all three. It is poetry month in the United States, which is what has this on my mind. Are song lyrics poetry set to music.? I get exasperated when people say this. They can be, certainly, but that’s not the way the making of a song works, even if it is a poem being set to music. There’s a connection between lyric and sound of lyric, note and sound of music, which makes the song a unique creation of its own, through alchemy which takes place in the ideas of the artist, and then is created anew each time a song is shared and heard.

To go along with these thoughts, the Irish band Altan offers Green Grow the Rashes O by Robert Burns. Mairéad Ni Mhaonaigh, who would usually have done the singing, was losing her voice that night, and so old friend Irish singer Mary Black stepped in -- and came in for a a bit of ragging from the Scottish crowd (this was a concert during Celtic Connections at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall) for having the lyrics on a paper to refer to. See what she does with them though.

you may also wish to see
Mary Black and Steve Cooney: Just a Journey
Celtic Connections 2012: the music begins
music of Donegal: Altan: The Poison Glen -Gleann Nimhe

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Holiday gift list: music of Ireland

It is a season of gathering, of sharing, of giving and receiving gifts. It also a season of music, listened to, shared, performed, given and received. Ireland is a source and home of music, so Irish music always makes a fine gift. Ideas for your holiday gift list, to give or receive:

Masters of the Irish Harp is a collection of music ranging from the classical to the traditional, newly composed and from time honored sources, played on all sorts of harps by many of the best of Irish harpers. Siobhan Armstrong offers Da Mihi Manum/Give Me Your Hand, Grainne Hambly adds Geese in the Box, Laoise Kelly plays Lon Dubh, and Maire Ni Chathasaigh brings Reel for a Water Diviner. There are a dozen more equally varied tracks.

On her album Through Wind & Rain, Cathie Ryan tells stores of resilience, hope, and courage in word and melody and arrangement. In the songs she writes and those she searches out, she brings ideas of making it through hard times and being transformed and encouraged through the passage. Ryan has often been honored for the beauty of her voice. Through her singing and song choices she brings intelligence, grace, insight, and a dash of humour when it’s called for to songs including Mo Nion O, Fare Thee Well, Liberty’s Sweet Shore, and In the Wishing Well.

The fire and energy of Ireland's far northwest form bedrock of the music of the Donegal based band Altan. Marked by the graceful singing and high energy fiddle playing of Mairéad Ni Mhaonaigh and the clear and connected ensemble work of Ciaran Ciaran, Ciaran Tourish, Mark Kelly, Dermot Byrne, and Daithi Sproule, their album The Poison Glen sees this world traveling band return to a strong focus on the music of their home place. Songs and tunes include Seolta Geala, The Ardara Girls set, The New Rigged Ship set, and The Blackest Crow.

Padraigin Ni Uallachain takes in inspiration for Songs of the Scribe from the side notes, the personal poems and reflections of those who created the illuminated manuscripts and writings of Irish history. the musings they wrote when they were taking a step away from their focused work on those books. Ni Uallachain has taken those musings and made them into songs, from The Hermit’s Wish of praising God to the reflection on nature in The Blackbird of Belfast Lough to the laughter one may share with a cat in Pangur Ban.

Roisin Elsafty takes her work from an older source, too: On her recording Ma Bhionn Tu Liom Bi Liom she offers songs in the sean nos style, where emotion and story depend on the singer's dynamics. She updates sean nos though by adding instrumentation, at times from the likes of Siobhan Armstrong, Ronan Browne, and Donal Lunny on songs inlcuding the lullabye Seoithin Seo and the love song Roisin Dubh

Heidi Talbot has a fresh way with older song too, interweaving older lyrics with newly devised melodies often as well as infusing newer songs with a touch of Irish tradition on The Last Star Music includes The Shepherd Lad and Cherokee Rose.

You have no need to be a dancer to appreciate Kathleen Conneely’s work on Coming of Spring. You can almost hear and see the dancers move, though, as she plays sets including Bonnie Ann, The Maid in the Meadow, and Rosemary Lane on the clear notes of her whistle.

As the winter holidays unfold, have a fine time exploring these gifts of music for others and for yourself, and stay tuned here along the Music Road for more suggestions for the holidays, and a list of best music of the year, too. Hint: several of the albums discussed above will be on that best of list.

photographs are by Kerry Dexter and are copyrighted. thank you for respecting this.

you may also wish to see

Americana music: gift ideas and seasonal music

Song of Solstice: music for changing seasons

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Music of Donegal: Altan: The Poison Glen -Gleann Nimhe

Land, sea, mountain, legend, history, solitude and community: Donegal, in Ireland's far northwest, is filled with these things. Altan, whose latest album is named after an area in Donegal called The Poison Glen, distill the essence of this land, both spirit and landscape, into their music.


As they have taken the music of Donegal across the globe for three decades now, Altan have collaborated with the artists ranging from Nashville’s country stars to Dublin’s classically trained musicians. Thinking about their latest project, they decided to focus on the energy and clarity that they bring to their live shows, just the six band members themselves, sparkling collaborations among fiddles, accordion, guitar, and bouzouki, deep energy of shared musical creativity, and Mairéad Ni Mhaonaigh’s thoughtful and thought provoking singing of songs in both English and Irish. These are what the band chose as the focus of how to present their music on The Poison Glen. “This is the core of our sound, what we do in our live shows, “ Ni Mhaonaigh says.

As they often do in performance, they open with a lively instrumental set, in this case pairing the traditional slip jig A Fig for a Kiss with the recently composed tune The Turf Cutter. This leads into the gentle song Seolta Geala,which invites you to seek the freedom of the ocean and forget the cares of with world,. Ni Mhaonaigh sings this in Irish. A set of reels which begins with The New Rigged Ship, a tune which traveled to Donegal from Shetland, well calls to mind that tunes in Irish music are most often made for dancers. “There’s a lot of emotion, a lot of life experience in these tunes. They're tunes for dances, but people pick up on the emotion in them,” Ni Mhaonaigh points out.

There is life experience in the songs, too, in both words and melody. Lily of the West is a tale involving love, jealousy, confrontation, murder, exile, and all sorts of other things, which has traveled back and forth across the ocean between the Americas and Ireland more than once. Ni Mhaonaigh and the band put their own stamp on the song, which Ni Mhaonaigh learned from a singer from Aranmore, who had a large store of songs in Irish -- this was one of the few songs in in English that she sang. There are thirteen tracks in all on the album, well balances between song and tune, between music from traditional sources and newly composed material.

A deep gift for finding and creating songs and tunes which honor and share the rugged landscape,strong community, and long legends of Donegal is what has marked Altan, since the early days in the 1980s when Ni Mhaonaigh and her late husband Frankie Kennedy began playing as the duo which evolved into the current band of six musicians. As they worked together on The Poison Glen, not only did they enjoy putting this project together, but “we saw there is a lot of creativity in the band, a lot of places for us to go. We all write, we all compose...an album of all original music might be something we’d look to do in future. We saw, too, how we could use the studio almost as another instrument in the band,” Ni Mhaonaigh says. “We’re very proud of this album, and we see there are more possibilities ahead for us to explore.”

Altan is:
Daithi Sproule, whose own compositions have been recorded by Liz Carroll, Aoife Clancy and others, on guitar, Ciaran Curran, whose subtle and original touch on bouzouki have brought him many chances to work with great traditional players, and Mark Kelly, who adds a rock and jazz as well as classical music knowledge to his work with the band on on guitar and backing vocals, Ciaran Tourish has added his talent on fiddle and whistles to the music of Paul Brady, Mary Black, Maura O'Connell, Dé Danann and Tim O'Brien among others, while Dermot Byrne, who plays accordion, has worked with Manus McGuire, Sharon Shannon, Frankie Gavin, and the late jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli. Mairéad Ni Mhaonaigh, on fiddle and vocals, has recorded with Enya, the Chieftains, Dolly Parton, T With the Maggies and others, and she is also in demand as a teacher and as a presenter of programs for broadcast . On Poison Glen, they are joined by Jim Higgins on percussion and Harry Bradley on flute.

About the title:
“The Poison Glen is a very beautiful part of Donegal,” Ni Mhaonaigh says. There are many stories about how it got its name, from it being a map maker’s mistaken writing of the name to an event in a battle fought there to a legend involving a one eyed giant called Balor, his daughter who he locked in a tower, a man who came to free the daughter, and what happened next. “I like the story about Balor the best!” says Ni Mhaonaigh. “We had Poison Glen it as a working title for the album, and we thought it had bit of an edge to it, so we decided to keep it.”

photograph of members of Altan at the Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow, made with permission of the artists and the festival, and is copyrighted. thank you for respecting this.

you may also wish to see

Music Road: Altan: 25th Anniversary Collection
Music Road: from Donegal: T with the Maggies
for another equally interesting version of Lily of the West, check out Lovers' Well: Matt & Shannon Heaton

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Holiday gift list: Irish music

The winter holidays are here, a great time for gift giving. What makes a better gift than Irish music? Look into these -- and, indeed, any recording by the artists named here -- and you will want to have several for your own as well as fill out your gift list. If you’ve come to Irish music by way of the stage shows by Celtic Women, the High Kings, and Lord of the Dance, welcome -- and prepare to go deeper into the music of the Emerald Isle. Much deeper. More about that idea here.




Cathie Ryan The Farthest Wave
Resilience and restraint are two qualities which mark Ryan’s work here, both in her singing and in the songs she chooses. Not for nothing was she named Irish Voice of the Decade, and she is also one of the best songwriters around, as witness the title track, a consideration of healing, hope, and courage framed in images of myth and the natural world. To learn more of Ryan’s work, you may like to follow this link.







Matt and Shannon Heaton Lovers’ Well
Lovers’ Well is one of those recordings that reveals more grace each time you hear it. Matt and Shannon Heaton have chosen a mix of not so usual Irish songs about love in its varied guises, along with tunes that are just the right tempo for couples to dance to, and a love song from Thailand, honoring Shannon’s time spent in that country, which somehow fits perfectly. Both the Heatons sing, separately and with fine harmony; he plays guitar and bouzouki, she plays whistles and flutes. If you happen to want to learn to play Irish music, or have someone on your gift list who does, follow the link above also to find out about Shannon's book, Oil for the Chain, which is a fine resource.

Julie Fowlis and Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh Dual
Julie Fowlis is from the Outer Hebrides of Scotland; Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh is from West Kerry in Ireland. Several years back they found that there are both similarities and differences in the musical traditions of their home places, and began exploring them. This intriguing album is the result.

Liz Carroll and John Doyle Double Play
Liz is an American who plays the fiddle so well that she won All Ireland competitions as a teenager; John is an Irishman now resident in America, a guitarist and singer who has been touring with Joan Baez and has worked with Susan McKeown, Cathie Ryan, and Michael Black and was a founding member of Solas. Liz is also a very fine composer. Plenty of her originals on here, and powerful singing and playing from John on traditional music too.

Donal Clancy Close to Home
The guitar is a rather recent addition to Irish traditional music, and Donal Clancy is one reason why it is such an integral part of the genre now. For this recording, it’s basically the man and his guitar on a gracefully chosen set of traditional tunes in Clancy’s own arrangements. For more on this album see Voices: Donal Clancy



Altan Local Ground
Local Ground for Altan is Donegal, in the northwest of Ireland. That’s an area where the traditions of Ireland and Scotland have mixed over the years, producing a tradition that’s both vibrant and soulful. This recording shows that through tune and song, and gives hint of why Altan is still delighting listeners after more than twenty years. also see music of Donegal: Altan




Aoife Clancy Silvery Moon
That's pronounced EEfa, in case you were wondering, and she’s cousin to Donal, above. She’s chosen a mix of American and Irish songs songs well suited to her inviting voice and style for this collection. There’s a stunner of a song about peace in Ireland, too, by another cousin, Robbie O’Connell, called There Is Hope -- look out for that one especially


and if Irish dance is especially your thing, be sure to check out this CD: Ellery Klein & Ryan Lacey: Kick into the Beat

coming up along the music road: holiday gift suggestions for the music of Scotland, the music of America, and music connected to the winter holidays.


you may also wish to see
Music Road: Best Music, 2010
Music Road: now playing: Mary Black: 25 years 25 songs
Music Road: now playing: Karan Casey: Ships in the Forest
Music Road: holiday gift list: music of Canada
Music Road: holiday gift list: American harvest
Music Road: Cathie Ryan: Songwriter

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

Altan: 25th Anniversary Collection

Altan: 25th Anniversary Celebration


Lough Altan is what some would call a mysterious lake, near Mount Errigal in Donegal in the far northwest of Ireland. For twenty five years the members of the band Altan, who decided to take their name from the lake, have done their fair share of taking the mystery, joy, and individuality of the music of Donegal to the rest of the world. Fiddles. bouzouki, guitar, whistles, accordion, and the outstanding voice of Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh are elements of the band’s sound, elements which they turn and tumble and weave and twine through songs of the Donegal tradition, original compositions, music from other parts of Ireland, American folk music, and on occasion the music of Bob Dylan.

To mark their two and a half decade celebration, the group decided to pursue a project they’d been considering for some time: making a recording with an orchestra. Though they’d played live in orchestra settings before, they’d not recorded that way.

The result, a collaboration with the RTE Concert Orchestra, conducted by David Brophy, proves to be an engaging way to add new colors to the band’s work. The arrangements by Fiachra Trench respect both the orchestral side and the hills of Donegal side of things, so the musicians and encouraged and challenged each to do what they do best. It really works.

The fifteen tracks are favorites with the band (and listeners over the years). Cití na gCuman, A Tune for Frankie, Is The Big Man Within? / Tilly Finn's Reel, and Dún Do Shúil are especially worth noting, and the whole program works very well together from start to finish, too. It proves a fine celebration to start Altan into, perhaps, their next twenty five years.

Side note: I had the chance to see Altan play with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra while they were putting together this recording. The recording itself was not done before a live audience, but every bit of the beauty and excitement of live performance comes through. It was clear that night that conductor Brophy, the band members, and the orchestra players were all having fine time challenging themselves together with this collaboration, and that must have been true of these recording sessions also.


you may also want to see

Music Road: music of Donegal: Altan

Music Road: now playing: Athena Tergis

Music Road: Three Fiddle CDs for Fall

Celtic Connections taster

Celtic Connections is in full swing in Glasgow now. here's a taste:


fiddles! Mairead and Ciaran

here is BBC Scotland's Celtic Connections 2010 site -- most audio available world wide, most video in UK only. the festival runs through 31 January.

you may also want to see

Music Road: Celtic Connections 2010 on the way

Music of Donegal: Altan

Local Ground


Donegal is in the far northwest of Ireland, a land of mountain and water, and one which shares more of its borders with Northern Ireland than with the Republic. Going back in history, it has been a place with many close connections with Scotland, and an area where Irish is often the first language. All those influences have come into play with through the music of the area, producing varied and distinctive styles of melody and song, and musicians who are not afraid to mix up genres and styles to get their points across.

The band Altan is one of the best known and most highly regarded groups of musicians from Ireland’s northwest, attacking tunes with fire and vigor at one moment and turning in haunting ballads the next. That is, in fact, reflective of of both the landscape on the history of their native place. Local Ground is a recent recording, which includes songs in both English and Irish, a crossing the waters American folk song Adieu My Lovely Nancy, a jig from early 20th century Donegal fiddle master John Doherty, one learned from modern Donegal born fiddle giant Tommy Peoples, several original tunes, and a close with a lullabye gently sung in Irish, Dun Do Shuil, Close Your Eyes.


As you are thinking about St. Patrick and lreland, here ia video to go along. celeberating Ireland's far northwest, a place where Irish and Scottish music, landscape, and isolation have united over the years to form a music with its own voice.

-->If you'd like to support my creative work,
here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this.Thank you.

photographing music, continued

This is a quiet photograph, showing two people connecting with the music, each other, and their audience, even though, of course, you do not see the audience. It allows the viewer to see a bit about my approach too, and, if I've done it right, begin to hear the music.

This was taken in the course of performance at The Narrows Center for the Arts in Fall River, Massachusetts. It's a rather small venue, and though I was free to move around, I didn't much. I always use available light, no flash, and that's what's here. These two artists, Hanneke Cassel on the left, and Cathie Ryan on the right, are well acquainted with my work, and I with theirs, so all of us were relaxed about me shooting during the gig, and as we all were, we quickly made the venue staff comfortable with that as well, and the audience.

There to serve the music -- that's how I view photographing musicians at work. Though each situation is different, that means among other things that I am thinking about music, present there in what's going on, rather than thinking technique or angle or lighting or anything else, really. I stay aware enough not to be in the way or distracting, which varies of course with circumstance, and I've done it long enough to have a range of ideas about how to handle light and angle, but music is always first. I also really like images that push the edges of light, so I use only what sort of lighting is available in any given situation. These aren't approches which work for everyone; they're the best for what I do.

Actually, I think about music quite a bit when photographing other subjects. It gives context to the process. But that's for another story. Recently, Jessie Voigts over at Wandering Educators was kind enough to interview me about my photography. We talked a bit about that, and she published several different shots than the ones you see here. Look for this article here

The artists shown here include Hanneke Cassel, Joe Craven, Liz Carroll , John Doyle, Tristan Rosenstock, Greg Anderson, Tish Hinojosa, and Cathie Ryan, in Fall River, Asheville, Glasgow, Austin, Worcester, and Burlington.

more music photography:

• winter light, and music


• photographing music: cathie ryan