Category 2019
Antoni O’Breskey – Nomadic Piano Project
Music Under The Mountains are delighted to announce a very special midsummer’s concert, Antoni O’Breskey!
Antoni (piano) is joined by Joe McHugh (uilleann pipes & whistles), Consuelo Nerea (vocals, harmonim, fiddle & bodhrán) & Tony Byrne (guitar).
“He is a man for whom the notion of borders means very little, a genius whose music is without frontiers, and whose originality makes him one of the most innovative composers in any contemporary medium. He gives us a strong idea of our roots and besides points out a few possible roads we might take in the future.” Oliver Sweeney – Hot Press
Antoni O’Breskey & Band.
St. Kevin’s Church of Ireland, Hollywood.
Saturday June 22nd, 8pm.
Tickets €20 (excluding booking fees) are available now from Eventbrite & musicunderthemountains.com.
Eleanor McEvoy-MUTM 2019
Music Under The Mountains are delighted to welcome the internationally acclaimed singer-songwriter Eleanor McEvoy to continue our 2019 festival program!
Eleanor McEvoy achieved star status in Ireland in 1992 when her song “A Woman’s Heart” was the title track for the A Woman’s Heart anthology album. A Woman’s Heart has since gone on to become the best-selling album in Irish history. She graduated from Trinity College Dublin with an honors degree in music and was accepted to the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland as a violinist. She worked with the symphony for five years before she finally took the plunge and left the classical world behind to concentrate on her real passion—songwriting. Eleanor released her eponymous debut on Geffen records followed by tours in the USA, Europe and the Far East. She moved to Columbia Records in New York for her second album ‘What’s Following Me?’ The first single ‘Precious Little’ was a top 10 radio hit in the US.
Since then, Eleanor has gone on to become an artist and performer known throughout the world. Her critically acclaimed canon of work spans fifteen albums and appearances on numerous compilation albums. She has also had numerous cover versions of her songs by performers such as Emmylou Harris, Mary Black, Phil Coulter, Mary Coughlan, Bella Hardy, (BBC folk singer of the year) Eliza Carthy, Derek Ryan and Jack L Her songs have been used in many TV and film sound tracks including HBO cult series “Six Feet Under.”, ABC’s “Clueless” and the Pearce Brosnan film “The Nephew”.
Her 2016 album “NAKED MUSIC”, featured a collaboration with British painter Chris Gollon which was launched in Gallery Different, London, where “Naked Music – The Exhibition” ran for three weeks, featuring 25 Gollon paintings inspired by the songs on Naked Music. The “Naked Live…” tour that followed ran throughout 2016 & 2017 with shows in Ireland, England, Wales, Spain, Germany, Australia, USA and Scotland followed by the launch of “Naked Music – The Songbook” published by Hot Press.
Her new album “The Thomas Moore Project” was launched in Ireland’s National Concert Hall and features 21st century adaptations of the songs of the 18th/19th century Irish poet Thomas Moore. It became RTE’s album of the week the week it was released and received rave reviews in Ireland, Hot Press magazine saying “McEvoy has re-established the relevance of one of Ireland’s most important yet most besmirched national artists” and the Irish Times describing it as “a highly evocative collection”
International acclaim followed with the Sydney Morning Herald writing “Still the world around you and listen to the words. Eleanor McEvoy, ever questing in her artistry, has crafted her own arrangements of songs by the distinguished Irish poet Thomas Moore…her voice distinctively blends the earnest with the elfin”. She has since toured The Thomas Moore Project throughout England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Spain, Holland, Germany and Australia and will soon be bringing it to the USA where the album has been receiving extensive airplay. When home from her travels, as well as being the chair of IMRO, Eleanor is also a voting member of the Recording Academy of America (the GRAMMYs) and in 2016 was appointed by Minister Heather Humphries to the board of Ireland’s National Concert Hall.
Eleanor will also host a workshop titled “Song Lyrics, Serious Literature or Throwaway Pop?”.
“In the wake of Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize for Literature, and Kendrick Lamar winning the Pulitzer Prize, Eleanor McEvoy explores the power of lyrics. Looking to her own songs and those of other writers, she explores the place song lyrics hold in today’s society.”
The workshop will take place in The Hollywood Centre at 3pm on Saturday September 21st at a price of €10. Admission is is free for weekend ticket holders and ticket holders for Eleanors concert on Saturday evening.
Eleanor McEvoy performs at Music Under The Mountains 2019
St. Kevin’s Church of Ireland
Saturday September 21st, 7pm
Tickets €20 (excluding booking fee), available from musicunderthemountains.com and Eventbrite
Jane Clarke, Cormac Breatnach & Eamonn Sweeney – MUTM 2019
Music Under The Mountains are delighted to kick off our 2019 festival with an intimate night of Poetry & Music featuring Jane Clarke (Poet), Cormac Breatnach (Flute & Whistles) & Eamon Sweeney (Guitar).
Jane Clarke grew up on a farm in Co. Roscommon and now lives with her partner in Glenmalure in Co. Wicklow. Her first collection, ‘The River’, was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2015. She was awarded a literary bursary by the Arts Council / An Comhairle Ealaíon in September 2017 for the completion of her second collection and her work on a sequence in response to a soldier’s letters from the Front during World War 1, in collaboration with the Mary Evans Picture Library, London.
“The virtues of Jane Clarke’s writing include a broad sympathy that never usurps the voice of the other, that guides the reader to understanding and respect; a pleasure in ingenious objects and crafts that is deftly transmitted; and a clarity which does not deny mystery but makes room for it.”
– Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Ireland Professor of Poetry.
Her poems have been published in The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Irish Times, The Irish Independent and various other publications, Jane has also had poems broadcast on RTE Lyric FM, RTE Radio 1’s Sunday Miscellany, Arena and the Poetry Programme.
Jane’s second collection, ‘When the Tree Falls’, will be published by Bloodaxe Books in September 2019.
Cormac Breatnach has been immersed in the Irish musical tradition from his early childhood. Throughout his career, which has spanned the last three decades, he has performed with Donal Lunny, Arty McGlynn, Iarla O’Lionaird, Matt Molloy, Micheál Ó’Súilleabháin, Paul McSherry, Elvis Costello and countless others. Cormac’s music takes it roots from deep within the Irish tradition but is also highly influenced by Jazz and Blues.
Cormac made his mark with Deiseal in the 1990s and, later, duetting with Martin Dunlea on 2001’s ‘Music for Whistle and Guitar’. 2012’s Éalú brought Cormac’s Jazz, Galician and Basque influences centre stage in an altogether more personal odyssey. Cormac’s latest album, ‘The Whistle Blower’ was released in 2018, it is a deeply personal work that explores and express musically how a particular traumatic event, his brother Osgurs wrongful arrest and conviction for involvement in the Sallins Mail Train Robbery in 1976 ,affected Cormac from his early teens into adulthood. Cormac also produced a short film to accompany the album, which was screened in the Mermaid Arts Centre in Bray, The Galway Film Fleadh, The Wexford Film Festival & The Cork Film Festival.
“Cormac Breatnach’s portrayal of the Sallins Mail Train Robbery case evocatively captures that dark period in Irish policing and criminal justice, and its enduring ramifications for his brother, his family and himself.”
– Professor Dermot P.J. Walsh MRIA, Kent Law School, University of Kent.
“An extraordinary project that Cormac undertook a couple of years back as a result of an arts council funded initiative: he uses the music a suite of pieces to tell the story of the Sallins Mail Train Robbery, in which his brother Osgur was wrongly accused; it’s a wonderful piece of work and the music is just gorgeous with co musicians Daire Bracken and Martin Tourish…”
-Ellen Cranitch ‘Vespertine’ RTÉ Lyric FM
Eamon Sweeney studied classical guitar at the DIT Conservatory of Music, while there he was exposed to the Baroque guitar, igniting his fascination with the style and inspiring his doctoral research into the guitar’s role as a continuo instrument in the court of Louis XIV, an unexplored area of French Baroque music. He has since performed on stage, radio and television, both as a solo artist and with various ensembles including the National Symphony Orchestra, National Concert Orchestra and Opera Theatre Company.
Eamon teaches and performs extensively, including giving broadcasts, lectures and seminars in Ireland and abroad. He has performed at many International Music Festivals including Sligo Festival of Baroque Music, Bath International Guitar Festival, Dundee International Guitar Festival, Guitar Festival of Ireland and the City of Derry Guitar Festival. Eamon teaches with the KWETB in Bray Music Centre and in post–primary schools throughout the county.
Jane Clarke, Cormac Breatnach & Eamon Sweeney perform at Music Under The Mountains 2019
Friday September 20th 2019, 8PM
Tickets €20, available from musicunderthemountains.com and Eventbrite
Music Under The Mountains 