IMRO fiddle masterclass with Máire Breathnach

Music guests: Nell Ní Chróinín  & Away With The Fairies 

 

Máire Breathnach is a musician of exceptional calibre in a number of music related disciplines.

Traditional music and musicology have featured largely in her life and have been a source of great inspiration in her work. Having obtained B.A., B.Mus. and M.A. degrees at U.C.D., she lectured there and in the College of Music, D.I.T., before embarking on a freelance career.

Máire has composed and recorded five solo albums: Angels’ Candles, The Voyage of Bran, Celtic Lovers, Dreams and Visions in Irish Song – Aislingí Ceoil and Cranna Ceoil / In Full Measure.mairetop

 

On fiddle, viola, whistles, piano and keyboards, guitar and vocals, Máire has performed and recorded with Riverdance, Christy Moore, Alan Stivell, Ronan Keating, Máire Brennan, Phil Chevron, Sinead O’Connor, Altan, Sharon Shannon, Mary Black, Mike Oldfield, Donovan, Dave Gilmour, Sarah Brightman, Gavin Friday, Nigel Kennedy, Donal Lunny, Dolores Keane, Ronnie Drew, Liam Ó Maonlaí, Ronan Hardiman and Bill Whelan.

As a record producer, she has worked with Sonny Condell, Johnny McEvoy, Jim McCann, The Black Family, Keith Donald, Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin, Méav and Lasairfhióna Ní Chonaola.

TV and film credits include Glenroe, Tinteán and Voyage (RTÉ), A Freezing Summer (Japan), Angela Mooney Dies Again, In The Name of the Father, The Secret of Roan Inish, Rob Roy and Moondance.

 

Máire has featured on two chart-topping albums, Tears of Stone (The Chieftains) which subsequently won a Grammy Award, and Éist, for which she wrote the title song, a duet with Brian Kennedy.

 

She wrote a traditional/folk music column for the Irish language weekly newspaper Anois and later for the monthly magazine Comhar (2004-07).

In 2006/07 she composed incidental music for over 40 children’s books in Irish (most of which she also narrated) for publication in CD format by Foras na Gaeilge.

Her first book, Vera agus a Veidhlín, a children’s musical story, illustrated by Robert Ballagh, was published in Dublin by An Gúm in 2008.