Dazzling duet on harp and guitar for club sessions in Offaly

Talented duo Máire Ni Chathasaigh (Harp) and Chris Newman Guitar) will make a very welcome return to the Club Sessions in the Tullamore Rugby Club on Friday 21st April.

Maire is one of Ireland’s most important and influential traditional musicians and 2001 recipient of Irish music’s most prestigious award, that of Traditional Musician of the Year- Gradam Cheoil TG4 - -"for the excellence and pioneering force of her music, the remarkable growth she has brought to the music of the harp and for the positive influence she has had on the young generation of harpers". She began to play the harp at the age of eleven.

A West Cork background steeped in the oral tradition led her, while still a teenager, to develop new techniques that made it possible for the first time to play traditional music on the harp in a stylistically accurate way. She won the All-Ireland and Pan-Celtic Harp Competitions several times and in 1985 recorded the first harp album ever to concentrate on traditional Irish dance music, The New-Strung Harp- "an intensely passionate and intelligent record and a milestone in Irish harp music" The Irish Examiner

Chris is a "brilliant English master of the acoustic guitar" (The Daily Telegraph), a "dazzling player” (Acoustic Guitar, USA) whose work is "nothing short of brilliant" (Dirty Linen, USA). He began to play guitar at the age of four and at fourteen played his first paid gig in a folk club. A prolific composer ,arranger and record producer, he's played with luminaries of many musical worlds: folk (harper Máire Ní Chathasaigh and Boys of the Lough), jazz (Stéphane Grappelli and Diz Disley) and comedy (Fred Wedlock).

The Club Sessions at Tullamore Rugby Club. Doors open at 7.30pm. Starts at 8.00pm.

Adm €15 (cash only). Bookings at 0861677330.

Supported by Offaly Arts and Dept of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sports & Media.