Ireland's music: harp & accordion

The harp: its stately elegance is is often thought of in connection with orchestras. The button accordion: the small lively button box is often thought of as anchoring sessions down at the pub, or accompanying the beat of step dancers’ feet. True, harps and accordiona are found at home in all those places. What happens when you put them together, though?

A wonderful confluence of creative and engaging music, as it happens. Floriane Blancke -- she’s the harpist -- and Dermot Byrne -- he plays accordion -- decided to do just that. Their differing backgrounds add to the ideas they bring to the music they create, too

click on the album cover to learn more about the recording

Blancke, who was born in Paris, has Hungarian gypsy jazz and classical music among her family influences, and studied classical music for ten years. In 2006, she moved to Ireland and has become part of the Irish music scene Byrne is from Buncrana in the north of Donegal in Ireland, where Irish traditional music, especially the fiddle music of that area of northwest Ireland, formed a part of his day to day life as he was learning his instrument.

The music they make draws in Irish tradition. Their original music and their arrangements of traditional pieces stir in these additional flavours as well, and the creative sounds their instrument make together. I was fortunate to be present at a concert the duo gave at the Celtic Connections Festival at the National Piping Centre in Glasgow. Should you have the chance to see Blancke and Byrne play live, take it. Meanwhile they have released a self titled album, well worth you time.

You may get a taste of their music and backgrounds in this video.

Photograph is by Kerry Dexter. It was made at the Celtic Connections Festival, with the permission of the artists, the venue, and the festival, and is copyrighted. Thank you for respecting this.

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Dermot Byrne and Floriane Blancke's web site

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Celtic Connections 2013: Images

Celtic Connections, which takes place each January in Glasgow, in Scotland, is an experience like no other. In the snow and sleet and wind of Scottish winter, musicians and listeners gather in venues ranging from a hotel conference room to a historic church to a lively pub to a grand concert hall to, at times, stairwells and concert hall steps to share the bonds of music which connect across time and space and place. The Celtic and the Connection are equally strong elements of the festival, which this past January marked twenty years.

Artists and listeners came from across the word, from Mali and Senegal, from Mongolia and Portugal, from all across the United States, from Canada, from Ireland, and from every part of Scotland as well, rising artists and established stars, sharing their songs and stories in one of the world’s most vibrant music cities.

I’ve been fortunate to attend Celtic Connections through many of the years of its two decade history. The Ireland and Scotland strands of music are those I most often follow. What’s above is a bit of what that looked like this year. If I’ve done my job well, you will hear a bit of the music through the silence of these images.

These photographs were made with permission of the the festival, the artists, and the venues involved. They are copyrighted, and I thank you for respecting that. The artists shown here include Mick McAuley, Cara Dillon, Zoe Conway. Mike McGoldrick, Mairéad Ni Mhaonaigh, Maighread Ni Dhomhnaill, Karen Matheson, Tim Edey, and Cyril MacPhee..

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Celtic Connections 2011: images, part two
T with the Maggies

-->If you'd like to help support Music Road,
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.