Frankie Gavin Traditional Irish Fiddler
... The concert from Frankie Gavin in Armagh last night was life-affirming. Not a person present was not blown away by the unfettered display of genius, fiddle-craft, knowledge of the music and deadly delivery from Frankie by the equally all-in perceptive and empathetic accompaniment from Catherine McHugh who was doing an inside job of accompanying Frankie that was nothing if it wasn’t mind reading. Whilst the fireworks were continually mind-blowing and entertaining, the music was intact in its true dignity and fresh originality, a feat that only a true genius on fire could deliver....
Gradam Ceoil Awards :
Frankie was awarded Traditional Musician of the 2018 with congratulations from Prince Albert of Monaco and Ronnie Woods. The award presented by President Michael D. Higgins.
... Innovation may be the buzz-word in Traditional music, but Frankie Gavin’s digressions are not in the common areas of tempo and superficial style-impressions. His contemporary borrowings of art-deco and music-hall Irishness are re-jigged in original avenues of exploration. His dextrous treatment of troublesome tunes might get even the Pope out on the floor, his orchestration could break hearts. A superbly uncompromising player, he makes refreshment of the old by picking out and polishing every detail and setting it off in a steady, listenable pace. Gavin, edgy and brilliant on both fiddle and flute, with always the most meticulous attention given to tone and variation. Live, his tune sets are perfectionism that drive and are driven by an audience spontaneity that spurs Gavin to push fiddle from shriek to rasping bass. Tears and cheers erupt spontaneously, the goodwill of his mixed-age audiences has always been great sauce. Like herding the mythic creac, Frankie Gavin here whoops a great retrospective before him into the Ogham of Celtic Valhalla.
- Fintan Vallely in the Sunday Tribune
Modern Day Traditional Irish Concertina Legend – Noel Hill
Paraic McNeela
Noel Hill, the virtuoso Irish concertina player from west county Clare, where the Irish concertina tradition is so strong that the instrument was once referred to as “the Clareman’s Trumpet”
Noel Hill is
So much is known about him and yet the man himself remains somewhat of an enigma. He lives now in the rural and somewhat isolated Connemara Gaeltacht by way of West County Clare and Sutton, Dublin.
His influence on traditional Irish concertina playing today cannot be overstated and as Irish Times journalist, Brian O’Connell puts it so eloquently:
‘He is to Irish traditional music what WB Yeats was to a generation of Irish poets, a one-in-a-generation player who casts a long shadow’.
Noel Hill Concertina Player
Playing Style
Noel Hill’s playing style is forceful yet sensitive. Hill is heavily influenced by the uilleann piping style of Willie Clancy, whom he encountered frequently as a child. Noel Hill’s playing is seen by many as the birth of the modern style of concertina playing.
Hill describes his awe struck reaction to Clancy’s playing:
‘He would come down on the regulators* like a clap of thunder and invariably sound in tune. No other instrument I could imagine could create that amount of volume and power. Clancy seemed to be unpredictable on the outside of it. All careless fantastic melody. And all of a sudden he would come down like a clap of thunder on the regulators when you least expected it and that fascinated me.’
A uniquely musically gifted child, Noel started playing his brother’s concertina at the age of nine. His early musical experience was influenced by masters such as Willie Clancy and his uncle, concertina player, Paddy Hill. Hill’s evolution as the concertina player we see today was almost inevitable.
It was 1988 before Noel Hill released his first solo album, The Irish Concertina, which promptly won Folk Album of the Year.
Probably his most celebrated album however is the duet album, Noel Hill & Tony Linnane, released in 1979 and featuring traditional Irish music giants such as Matt Molly, Alec Finn and Mícheál Ó Domhnaill.
It was this album that firmly planted once and for all the concertina as a major instrument in the Irish musical tradition.
