Feast of Trad 'n' Folk for Tuam

IF you are a Trad or Folk fan then Tuam is the place to be at the end of this month and during the June Bank Holiday weekend. Some of the top acts in the Trad and Folk fields will be providing the entertainment at a series of concerts in two venues, The Mall Theatre and the marquee at the Corralea Court Hotel. The hotel show will feature stars such as Sean Keane and Don Stiffe while Orlaith Keane, Chris Droney, Mike Stewart and Gary Quinn headline a show at newly- refurbished Mall Theatre. The concert at The Mall Theatre is on Sat, May 28 and the two concerts in the marquee at the back of The Corralea Court Hotel are on Friday, June 3 and Sunday 5. But to get the fans into the Folk and Trad mood Gary Quinn, Ann Kirrane and Mike Stewart with special guests Orlaith Keane and Colm Naughton and the legendary Chris Droney will play in the Mall Theatre on Friday Mat 28. The show starts at 8.30 pm and tickets are €12. Gary Quinn is a virtuoso accordion player whose album Keep it Lit has been hailed as a must-have CD in traditional music collections. He has toured recently in the USA and testament to his success have been the invites to return and perform there again. The Philadelphia Irish Festival was a particular highlight. Ann Kirrane is no stranger to audiences in Tuam and Ballinrobe as a leading lady in many musicals over the years. Ann is also an All-Ireland champion Concertina player and an excellent Traditional-contemporary singer.  Her renditions of The Bantry Girl's Lament, Do You Love An Apple, Lullaby, Swannee and many more are an exercise in vocal perfection. Mike Stewart has been a regular on the music circuit for more years than he likes to admit to but he has never lost his love of Folk-Traditional music. His album Down the Lane, released two years ago is still a firm favourite on local radio and indeed on Irish radio stations in the USA. Recently it was the featured album on WKMR in Philadelphia. Orlaith Keane, of the famous musical Keane family from Caherlistrane, has just released her first CD The Home Place. It is a collection of great songs sung in her own inimitable style and accompanied on banjo, mandolin and guitar by Colm Naughton. Orlaith is the daughter of Matt, who has been a huge influence on her. She contributed four songs on Matt's last CD Pictures in Time and a great version of The Moon and St. Christopher on his first album.  Colm Naughton is a top-class instrumentalist who adds perfection to the arrangements. Chris Droney's musical journey has been going on now for 78 years. Chris is now 86 and still plays with all the joy and abandon of a young lad. At a recent session in Ballyvaughan the happiness on peoples' faces was very evident as he took centre stage and played his concertina until the small hours, while all the time entertaining the crowd with some pithy remarks. If that wasn't enough he took to the floor and danced a Clare Set. Chris Droney has recorded many albums, the most recent of these being Down From Bell Harbour, which was released when he was eighty years young. Tickets to see this fine collection of performers are available from Quinn's Shop Bishop Street, 093-26060, or at the door on the night. Meanwhile, Don Stiffe will open a June Bank Holiday weekend of entertainment at The Corralea Court Hotel on Friday, June 3. Don, who has been amassing a big fan base in Galway and across the West for many years endeared himself to new fans all over Ireland when he was recently runner-up in the The All Ireland Talent Show on RTE TV. Don is a well-known singer-songwriter working on the Folk scene and his style has often been compared to that of his colleagues on the Folk and Trad circuit such as Sean Keane, Sean Tyrell, Dolores Keane and Dessy O'Halloran. He released his debut album Start of a Dream to critical acclaim in 2006 with a major concert in the Town Hall Theatre, Galway to launch it. The album also featured other leading entertainers, and friends of Don, such as Frankie Gavin, Carl Hession, Sharon Shannon, Cathal Hayden and Arty McGlynn. He also joined forces with his musical colleague Sharon Shannon when they released a fund-raising festive single for Croi, the West of Ireland Cardiology Foundation, during Christmas 2008. 'Since we did some shows in a marquee at the back of the hotel last March, many Folk fans had been asking us to stage concerts featuring local stars who have made it nationally. 'We thought that the June Bank Holiday weekend was the ideal time to feature artists such as Don Stiffe and Sean Keane in their own separate concerts,' says Martin Geoghegan of The Corralea Court Hotel. Sean Keane is Martin's neighbour in Caherlistrane, Martin lives not far away in Bodane, and the singing star has just returned from a very successful tour of venues in Austria. Over the years Sean has become a firm favourite with Folk fans, not alone here at home but all over the world in venues as far apart as Sydney and San Francisco. He has been winning awards for his music and singing since he was a child and a string of best-selling albums in recent years has ensured that he is one of the most popular of the new breed of Traditional entertainers that can also diversify, with ease, into more contemporary music. His background in music and singing stretches back to early childhood and his professional solo career is now over 15 years strong. In that time he has released material ranging from unaccompanied Traditional songs, through Folk and newly-penned offerings, to Country songs and even some Blues. In all cases, the hallmark of Sean's work is his unmistakeable voice, which lends itself perfectly to all these genres and allows him to take ownership of a widely diverse selection of material. Over the years, writers have made a point of complimenting him on his treatment of their songs. Among others, Sonny Curtis who wrote Sean's hit No Stranger to the Rain, said that Sean sang the song exactly as he imagined it should be sung when he wrote it. Sean s Traditional work has featured in many ways,  May Morning Dew was used as part of the soundtrack for the documentary film The Irish Empire, and Stór Mo Chroí in the soundtracks of two other American documentaries. Author Joseph O'Connor has described Sean as the Caruso of Irish music in his book, Star of the Sea. Sean's many fans will be delighted to hear him back in action in Tuam at the concert in The Corralea Court Hotel on Sunday, June 5 and as it is the eve of the Bank Holiday Monday that makes for an even more enjoyable night as most people can sleep in the following morning! â€â€ TG.