Featuring Steve Cooney and Cormac Breatnach
“The best musicians always have their own distinctive sound.... and their sound is instantly recognisable” Aoife Nic Cormaic
Tickets €25, available from Solas Bhride Centre or Kildare Heritage Centre
Throughout his long career, Cormac Juan Breatnach has recorded on more than 30 albums and played with artists as diverse as Elvis Costello, Vanessa Williams, Donal Lunny, Bernard Purdie and Máire Breatnach. In 2018 Cormac collaborated with Daire Bracken and Martin Tourish to record his ‘Whistle Blower’ CD; he performed his compositions live with film and graphics in 2019.
Steve Cooney is best known for his development of an influential style of guitar accompaniment to traditional Irish music. He came to Ireland from Australia in 1980 and maintains his connections with the Aboriginal culture there. Creatively involved in more than 240 CDs, he has worked with many iconic international artists. A poet and songwriter, Cooney completed a Ph.D. in 2018 on an intuitive musical notation system that he devised. In 2007, at the Rostrevor Fiddler’s Green Festival, Seamus Heaney wrote: “Master Cooney restores the ancient link between lyre and lyric, between poetry and performance, the rhapsody and rascality”.