Music Play
The 40th Clifden Arts Festival will take place from the 13th-24th September 2017 and will showcase Ireland’s diverse and artistic culture through compelling, breath-taking events. Every year this annual Arts Festival, held in a picturesque, coastal town, hosts an extraordinary repertoire of exceptional Irish and International musicians who will appeal to the masses no matter where you are from or what your taste in music is. Some of the most anticipated highlights of the festival will include electrifying, pristine performances from an eclectic field of gold-standard musicians and singers, including Cathy Jordan, Jarlath Henderson, Mick Daly, Lisa Lambe, Sean Keane and Tommy Flemming.
Music Network is delighted to present an eclectic and vivacious new collaboration featuring three extremely talented instrumentalists and vocalists. Dervish front woman Cathy Jordan, will be accompanied by founder member of Four Men and a Dog, Mick Daly and completing the line-up will be current BBC Radio 2 folk awards 2017 nominee, Jarlath Henderson.
Cathy Jordan, lead singer of the traditional super group Dervish, is regarded as one of the finest traditional singers in Ireland today. Her illustrious career means she has toured worldwide, performing many concerts in over forty countries. Her performance highlights include concerts at the Great Wall of China, the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and Rock in Rio where she sang for over 250, 000 people.
The youngest ever winner of the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award, Tyrone-born, multi-instrumentalist and singer Jarlath Henderson has won widespread acclaim for his extraordinary prowess on the uillean pipes and whistles, while also establishing himself as a gifted vocalist. Described by the Guardian as “one of the heroes of the new Celtic folk scene”, his hotly-anticipated solo debut ‘Hearts Broken, Heads Turned’, has been nominated for Best Album at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2017.
Founding member of the ground breaking band, Four Men and a Dog Mick Daly is a creative key force behind the Cork-based bluegrass ensemble, The Lee Valley String Band, one of Ireland’s musical treasures that has been quietly burnished and enriched for decades. Daly has toured extensively as a member of Arcady, Any Old Time, The Mary Black Band and Scullion, a gifted guitarist and 5-string banjo player; he is also widely celebrated for being an exceptional singer and interpreter of traditional song.
The coming together of these three creative musicians, all respected exponents of traditional Irish music with a flair for innovation and inventiveness will undoubtedly showcase dynamic instrumental playing, stunning song interpretations and an engaging blend of vocal harmonies that is not to be missed.
After twenty-five years honing his craft, Tommy Fleming is now taking his place at the forefront of popular music across the globe. Tommy evolves every song with his own unique, deeply romantic and sincere style, evoking emotions in you that only music can reach. A Tommy Fleming concert is a musical experience not to be missed with one song more haunting than the other.
Tommy turns each song into his own with his own unique and powerful style touching emotions in you that only music can reach. Tommy is famous for his own arrangement of ‘Danny Boy’, ‘Isle of Inisfree’ and ‘Hard Times’ all songs that you know and love but you have never heard them until you hear his evocative, flawless versions.
Tommy’s unique talent has brought him worldwide recognition with several sell-out tours in Ireland, the UK, the US, Australia and Japan and he is now critically acclaimed to be one of the worlds’ finest singers of his generation. He has a universal appeal to all ages and backgrounds with a fan base that is growing stronger worldwide year by year.
Irish singer and musician, Sean Keane known for his distinctive sean-nós-style voice, is going back to his roots in music. In this brand new one-man show, set in his grandmother’s kitchen, he searches through her old leather suitcase where she held all the words of many famous songs collected from people who visited her home in Carragh near Caherlistrane. Sean combines songs and stories of how he was influenced to sing in the traditional way from a very early age. Featuring many well-known favourites like ‘A Stór Mo Chroí’, ‘Dear Little Isle’, ‘May Morning Dew’ and ‘Erin’s Lovely Home’.
Lisa Lambe is one of Ireland’s most sought after singers and actors. Her serious theatrical turns at the Abbey and the Gate, followed by playing Sorcha in all three Ross O’Carroll-Kelly plays, not to mention more than three years she spent as a member of international singing sensation Celtic Woman. With her riot of fiery red curls, she is rapidly becoming one of the most popular female singers with her sensational television, radio and stage performances. Lambe’s remarkable voice paired with collaborators Fiachna O’Braonain and Martin Brunsden capture a rare instinct for interpretation which will leave audiences spellbound.
Martin plays double bass and singing saw and has worked with holy men and women, artists, the Hothouse Flowers, poets, sculptors and theatre companies. Fiachna has worked with African gospel singers, Moroccan tribesmen, Texan swingers and Irish balladeers as well as performing with his own band Hothouse Flowers for over thirty years. The trio has found in each other a natural simple symbiosis which draws on various musical roots to produce a gentle and heartfelt world of song.
No matter what your taste is this eclectic array of musicians have an electric enthusiasm for creating stadium-worthy music and their purely raw talent will leave you in a frenzy of clapping and dancing as you feel the distinctive beat of the music pumping through your veins and igniting a fire within you.
For more information about the Clifden Arts Festival and ticket sales, please visit www.clifdenartsfestival.ie
For additional information about The Clifden Arts Festival please contact Think PR – 091 79 25 26 – 087 9004145 or pam@thinkpr.ie – Pam Finn
About Clifden Arts Festival
The longest running community arts festival in Ireland, Clifden Community Arts Week, now in its 40th year will take place from September 13th – 24th and yet again promises to have something to excite everyone in this year’s programme. Audiences can expect a very high quality artistic programme with a superb literary, musical and visual art content which again will have the community arts of Clifden and the surrounding hinterland as a central focus with creative writing, music, theatre, graphic design and film workshops and performances taking place in the local schools for the duration of the festival.
