Club Sessions come to a close after nine years bringing top class music to Offaly

The Club Sessions, after nine years of bringing top class traditional Irish music and folk music to Tullamore, is drawing to a close next weekend, October 20 nd 21.

To celebrate the enormous success of almost a decade of live musical performances the Club will finish with a double bill of concerts.

The first will take place on Friday 20th  of October at 20:00 in the Tullamore Rugby Club. Performing will be fiddle player, Sorcha Costello, accordion player and singer, Conor Connolly, and guitar player, Pádraig Ó Dubhghaill. Both Sorcha and Conor are recent recipients of the prestigious TG4 Young Musician of the year award.  Sorcha, from Tulla, Co. Clare, comes from a family steeped in vernacular tradition.

Through her grand-uncle Tony MacMahon, her mother and uncle Mary and Andrew MacNamara, she’s had an introduction to traditional music to be envied. Highly regarded as a performer, she is also a very talented teacher of music.  Conor is a button accordion, piano player and singer from Clarinbridge, Co. Galway.

Coming from an area steeped in Irish music, he was destined to play the accordion with players like Joe Cooley who came from the locality and Joe Burke from whom he took lessons.  Conor has toured, performed and taught workshops at many festivals and summer schools at home and abroad. He is one of the most exciting young performers of traditional Irish music today. 

Pádraig was born and raised in Inverin, situated in the Connemara Gaeltacht. He started learning the tin-whistle at a young age under the tutelage of Mary Bergin before picking up the guitar at 17 years of age. After spending a couple of years playing a variety of music, Pádraig decided to apply his guitar-playing skills to Irish traditional music.

While completing the MA in Irish Music Performance at the University of Limerick, he learnt from some of the best accompanists in the tradition including Steve Cooney and John Blake. This trio have recently toured Australia and New Zealand together and promise to deliver a vibrant energetic performance on the night.

The second event of the weekend will take place on Saturday 21st  October in the Methodist Church at 17:00. Playing will be the quartet of Pádraic Keane, Aidan Connolly, and brothers Fergus and Ruairí McGorman. These performers will bring a classic mix of traditional instruments together; uilleann pipes, fiddle and flute accompanied by Ruairí McGorman's exquisite Greek bouzouki playing. Pádraic Keane, from Maree in Galway, is a prodigious exponent of piping in Ireland today and also a recipient of the TG4 Young Musician of the Year Award.

He is joined by fiddle player  Aidan Connolly from Rathfarnham who has been heavily influenced both by the musicians of his locality and the great fiddlers of times past: Paddy Cronin, Paddy Canny and  Denis Murphy  to name but a few. He has studied traditional music in-depth and is a highly respected authority on traditional instrumental music from the 1920s onwards. 

Aidan has his own unique style of playing and is a highly sought-after performer both in Ireland and abroad.  Brothers Fergus McGorman (flute) and Ruairí McGorman (Greek Bouzouki) were born into a musical family in Ratoath, Co Meath. Fergus' powerful, rhythmic flute playing and Ruairí's weaving harmonies and countermelodies are the perfect match for the virtuosity of Keane and Connolly.

Friday's concert starts at 8.00pm in the Rugby Club. Adm 15 euro. Saturday's concert starts at 5.00pm in the Methodist Hall, Church Street, Tullamore Adm 10 euro. Cash only, no card facility. Contact 0861677330