🎻 Bow & Echo

The fiddle found its way to Ireland 300 years ago, and has since become an inseparable from traditional Irish music. But many of the tunes themselves come from a much earlier time. Some, in fact, date to pre-Christian Ireland when druids and fairies were abundant and forgotten kings ruled the land.

In this program, I will weave together the older Celtic melodies known to historians, and reimagine them using 5-string violin and a rich layering of live loops.

With all of these tunes, "historical accuracy" is already constrained by how little we know of the melodies and their origins. So we might as well use our imagination!

The Song of Amairgen (OLD - unknown date) - ancient mystical poem uttered by Amairgen Glanglun, the legendary bard, as he first stepped foot upon the land of Ireland, on the shores of Kenmare Bay.

Brian Borús March (10th century)

Follow Me Up to Carlow (16th Century) - an Irish folk song celebrating the defeat of an army of 3,000 English soldiers during the Second Desmond Rebellion in 1580.

Eileen Aroon (Early 1700s) "Eileen Beloved"

Si Bheag, Si Mhor (1600s) - "Small Fairy Mound, Big Fairy Mound"