Connemara Suite

The Connemara Suite


Connemara is a part of the west of Ireland where land, sky, and and sea intertwine -- as they do all through the island, of course. The open spaces of this land in west Galway has a voice of its own, however, with singers such as the sean nos master Joe Heaney and the singers and musicians of the Keane family, to name but a few.

Bill Whelan, a man whose name you may know as the composer of music for the world wide sensation Riverdance, from his days playing with Planxty, or as producer for Kate Bush. also lives in Connemara. He’s composed a suite of music which has the land speak through the voices of both classical and traditional musicians, voices mainly without words, as these are instrumental compositions with just a bit of voice lilting in them.

The members of the Irish Chamber Orchestra under the direction of David Jones provide the string landscape background of sorts within which the soloists work. In the three movement of the opening piece, Inishlacken, Zoe Conway on traditional fiddle and Fionnuala Hunt on classical violin open up the composer's vision of first, rowing out to the island of Inishlacken, then the flight of birds along the water, and in the third section, idea which move from a quiet evening sunset to a community dance. It makes a lovely conversation among the the strings and evokes the landscapes, though you don’t need to know anything of Connemara to enjoy the visit.

The second section, Errisbeg, invites the listener to explore moods of a mountain near Whelan’s home, while the third section, Carna, is in three movements which travel in emotion and tone from dawn until evening, rounding off the evening with the connections and music shared in a community music session, bringing things in a bit of a circle with the ending of Inishlacken. Errisbeg features Conway again on fiddle, while Michelle Mulcahy joins in on harp. Conway is also the fiddler on Carna, and Colin Dunne adds dance percussion. All these are framed in the work of the string players of Irish Chamber Orchestra, a collaboration which adds dimension and depth to the ideas -- and it sounds as though all the musicians really enjoyed the challenges of fitting classical and traditional ideas together, as well. The music is at times lively, at times reflective, and always opening new doors in the connections of music and landscape.

you may also want to see


video of the Connemara coast at Bill Whelan’s web site

Music Road: now playing: Zoe Conway

Music Road: Sarah-Jane Summers: Nesta

Hanneke Cassel and Christopher Lewis: Calm the Raging Sea

now playing: Athena Tergis

A Letter Home

Fiddler Athena Tergis has lived in San Francisco, New York, and points between, in Belfast, Galway, London, and points between, and she’s now based in the Tuscan region of northwest Italy. When she decided to call her first solo recording A Letter Home, she was considering all that. Her background also includes playing in Riverdance on Broadway, touring with Sharon Shannon, and backing up many world renown musicians while at TG4, the national Irish language television channel in Ireland. A Letter Home is a collection of Celtic based tunes which are true to the traditions from which they arise but which also allow the listener to hear Tergis’ own instrumental flair and line of thought quite clearly. The music includes a lively set of barn dances and a Scottish tinged strathspey, after opening at a fiery pace with a set of Irish reels. In all there are fourteen tracks : jigs, reels, highlands, set dance tunes, flings, and slow airs, tunes with origins in Galway, Cork, Antrim, and Donegal as well as in the Scottish Highlands, the Irish community of Chicago, and the heart of Cape Breton in Nova Scotia.


John Doyle, whose music you’ve encountered before on this site, produced the collection, and there’s really collaborative ensemble work from Sharon Shannon and Billy McComiskey on accordions, cellist Natalie Haas, Ben Wittman on percussion, and fiddler Liz Carroll.