It's that time of year again: when the light begins to dim, the raincoats make a permanent appearance on the coat stand, and the thermal socks and boots replace the sandals for good. TG4's annual traditional music awards aim to highlight the depth of musical talent at home. Some of this year's award-winning performers talk to Siobhán Long.
Now we can add the TG4 Gradam Ceoil/Traditional Musician Of The Year Awards to the calendar. Seven years on, and not a sign of an itch. It's looking like these TG4 awards have stepped into a wide breach, where for far too long, too many musicians have languished without a laurel being cast in their direction. All that has changed however, and although the traditional arts world is rife with political in-fighting, it's big enough to pay homage to the great and the good who've cosseted the music towards its current rude state of health.
This year's award winners will be announced today, with The Chieftains' fiddle player, Seán Keane, taking the Traditional Musician Of The Year prize. Never a man to hog the spotlight, his playing has nevertheless garnered the attention of musician and punter alike, his penchant for retaining the essence of the tradition widely admired, regardless of the left-field collaborations that his compadres in The Chieftains might have sought. Keane's modesty is such that he's still reeling from news of the award, but he's quick to acknowledge its importance to him as a working musician and as a lifelong fan of the music.
"I feel greatly honoured," he smiles sheepishly, "and I was totally shocked for a few days after hearing the news, I needn't tell you. It's nice for a musician to get a pat on the back every so often. With The Chieftains, you're part of a group, and you accept that of course, and go along with it happily, but when something like this happens, it means that somebody out there spotted you, and liked what you were doing."
Most traditional musicians worth their salt will agree that the solo performance is central to their musical identity. While ensemble and session playing is at the heart of the music, whether it's a Sliabh Luachra polka or a Sligo reel, each player is duty bound to carry a tune alone, with nothing but fresh air and the instrument separating the musician from their audience.
"At every concert we've done, the solo performance gets a great reaction," Keane offers. "It's important for us too, to strut our stuff for a few minutes." Although he is a Dubliner by birth, Keane's father and mother were from counties Clare and Longford respectively, and both were fiddle players. Having been steeped in the music, he took up the fiddle as naturally as his peers kicked a ball, and although he embraced both traditional and classical styles during his formative years, he jettisoned the classical once he'd passed through the classical examination process.
"I hate that word 'revival'," Keane says. "The music was always there, but I suppose it's just that bit stronger now. I got it directly from my parents, from the source of the tradition. Now though, it's far more accessible to all and sundry. I studied at the School Of Music from the age of about 10 until I was 18 years of age. I was all the time in touch with the traditional music sessions in Dublin, which there was an abundance of at that time, particularly between the Pipers' Club in Thomas Street and St Mary's Music Club in Church Street, as well as the various folk clubs. It was a very vibrant time for the music and there was a great concentration of music - singing and instrumental - all around the city. But I do think the classical training stood to me - bow hand and tone, I would hope, and fingering. It was definitely no load."
Seán Keane has always had a respectful relationship with traditional music, mixed with an appetite for reuniting with long lost (musical) first cousins, so that the bloodlines and cross-currents could be readily identified and celebrated. Having cut his teeth with The Castle Céilí Band in the late 1950s, Keane joined Seán Ó Riada's Ceoltóirí Cualainn in 1964, having won the fiddlers' competition of Fleadh Ceol An Radio in 1963. From there he moved on to Ceoltóirí Cualainn's graduate school, The Chieftains, in 1968, at Paddy Molony's invitation, and he lined up alongside Mick Tubridy, Martin Fay, Peadar Mercier and Seán Potts.
"Seán Ó Riada wasn't without recognising the people he was working with - strong traditional musicians like Mick Tubridy and Paddy Molony," Keane recalls. "When you speak about innovation, he did it without ever disrespecting the tradition. Sometimes I wonder if, as far as innovation is concerned, young musicians are serious about what they're doing. Absorbing new influences is fine, but really it boils down to the execution of what you're doing, which is governed by your own technique, the instrument you're playing, and your theoretical technique as well. You must appreciate the basic traditional structure, and when I hear, for example, young musicians bringing jazz into Irish traditional music, without being able to handle the jazz first, it just doesn't work. I'd rather hear an absolute jazz musician do it, rather than someone reared in traditional music, who is not a jazz player.
"The Chieftains were never over-adventurous," Keane says. "We're all traditional instrumental musicians, and the latest music we became involved in, bluegrass, wouldn't be greatly removed from what we're doing anyway. It carries other influences like blues, but ultimately the whole thing revolves around a folk music which basically came from this neck of the woods anyway."
Edel Fox, born in Miltown Malbay, Co Clare, took the Young Traditional Musician Of The Year award, and has brought the concertina back into the limelight, with her intricate and delicate handling of the instrument. "My mother's grand-aunt, Catherine Mulally, was a very well-known concertina player," Fox explains, "and I was just seven when I started to play. My first teacher was Noel Hill, and it was an instrument I wanted to play from when I was very young. I remember my dad bringing me in to a pub in Miltown Malbay one Sunday during the Willie Clancy week after mass, and there was a little girl of about eight or nine inside in the kitchen playing the concertina. So I nagged my dad after that until I got my own. Then my mam and I started concertina classes together and she would teach me the tunes after the class every week."
Fox is quick to credit her home place with injecting her with a love of the music so early: "My teacher, Dymphna O'Sullivan, was a great help, but growing up in Miltown, there was and is a very strong musical population of both locals and others who moved here, like (box player) Jackie Daly and (fiddler) Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh. Pete Haugh and Michael O'Mahony are two musicians who've been playing in Clery's bar in Miltown Malbay. I remember going in there when I only had one tune, and no matter how many times I played the one tune, they'd encourage me to play it over and over, just to encourage me, and it's people like that you remember. I still go back there whenever I go home. You can go to all the classes you want, and obviously the classes are really important, but it's going to festivals and workshops and meeting new people that broadens your horizons as a musician."
Accordionist Tony MacMahon, this year's recipient of the Hall Of Fame award is distinctly nonplussed by the accolade. "My reaction when I got a phone call from TG4 about this reward was one of upset, and a certain degree of anger, because I know that, for example, Paddy Cronin, living in Killarney, is the greatest exponent of Irish traditional music on the fiddle alive today. I was a bit upset that I should be singled out for this award, partly because I have spent so much time in broadcasting, where I was responsible for the music of other people, and I'm only beginning to get to grips with my own music.
"Awards such as these pander to thecult of the personality. When I first started listening to Irish traditional music, personality was never an issue. The best musicians I was lucky enough to meet were people of great innocence and humility, and they were very natural, quiet people, who would have been astounded if they were called 'great'. If someone told Joe Cooley he was great, he wouldn't have been able to handle it. He wasn't used to thinking in those terms."
Ultimately, MacMahon believes, a musician's internal barometer is the best judge of the music. External forces and accolades will never negate the player's own instincts about his or her own playing. "A musician always knows who is listening and who understands what he or she is doing," he says. "A musician will always say: 'Give me one listener in a crowd and I'm happy to play for them'. The music is far more important than those of us who play it. The best we can do at any time is to be a conduit between the musicians of the past and the listener in the present. The best we can do is to be a witch doctor for a few moments in time, and to bring something of the joy and the passion and the tenderness of the music to the listener. It's simply Mother Nature talking. It's like the beautiful flapping of the wings as a bird lands. That's what our music is: moments of spiritual beauty."
The awards will be presented at University Concert Hall, Limerick, on Sunday, November 28th.
