Dazzling harp and guitar duet for Club Sessions

Máire Ni Chathasaigh (harp) and Chris Newman guitar) will make a very welcome return to the Club Sessions in the Tullamore Rugby Club on Friday, April 21.

One of Ireland’s most important and influential traditional musicians, Máire won the 2001 Traditional Musican of the Year from TG4 Gradam Cheoil.

She was lauded for her "excellence and pioneering force of her music, the remarkable growth she has brought to the music of the harp and for the positive influence she has had on the young generation of harpers".

She began to play the harp at the age of eleven. A West Cork background steeped in the oral tradition led her, while still a teenager, to develop new techniques that made it possible for the first time to play traditional music on the harp in a stylistically accurate way.

She won the All-Ireland and Pan-Celtic Harp Competitions several times and in 1985 recorded the first harp album ever to concentrate on traditional Irish dance music.

Meanwhile, The Daily Telegraph call Chris Newman a "brilliant English master of the acoustic guitar".

He began to play guitar at the age of four and at fourteen played his first paid gig in a folk club. A prolific composer ,arranger and record producer, he's played with luminaries of many musical worlds: folk (harper Máire Ní Chathasaigh and Boys of the Lough), jazz (Stéphane Grappelli and Diz Disley) and comedy (Fred Wedlock).

The Club Sessions takes place at Tullamore Rugby Club on Friday, April 21. Doors open at 7.30pm. Starts at 8pm.

Adm €15 (cash only). Bookings at 0861677330.

Supported by Offaly Arts and Dept of Tourism and Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sports and Media.