Well, no-one is going to get lulled to sleep by this week’s midweek instrumental feature – this splendidly joyous sound from Téada features two reels (‘Ar Mhuin na Muice‘ and ‘Garranmore‘) composed by Nenagh-born fiddler Seán Ryan (1919-85) interspersed with reels sourced from Gerry O’Connor’s ‘Rose in the Gap‘ tunebook featuring tunes from South Ulster collected in the Donnellan Collection. The track is taken from ‘Coiscéim Coiligh –As the Days Brighten‘, the new album by Téada which was released on Gael Linn on May 1st.
It’s the band’s sixth album – and they haven’t been hitting the recording cycle too hard as that has been in the band’s 21 years of existence. They’re regular tourers of the world though, having played (amongst other places!) in USA, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Africa, Russia, the Middle East and Australia. Highlights include a 30,000-capacity stadium concert in Brittany, along with performances at Penang World Music Festival in Malaysia, Edmonton Folk Festival in Canada, Harare International Festival of the Arts in Zimbabwe, and Rainforest World Music Festival in Borneo. The new album also features a guest vocal by the actor John C. Reilly on ‘Eileen Óg’.
But right now it’s instrumental time, and we hope you have your toe-tapping shoes on…