Tradition Now: Damien Dempsey & NSOI

Damien Dempsey & National Symphony Orchestra Ireland
Laoise Kelly & Tiarnán Ó Duinnchinn 
Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin and RÓIS 
Ger Wolfe  

Our festival of new traditional and folk music takes over NCH with performances across four rooms...

6:00PM    Ger Wolfe – NCH Studio
7:30PM    Damien Dempsey & NSOI – Main Stage
9:00PM    Laoise Kelly & Tiarnán Ó Duinnchinn - Kevin Barry Recital Room
10:00PM  Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin & RÓIS - NCH Studio 

Damien Dempsey, beloved for his unique sound and powerful social and political consciousness, makes his highly anticipated orchestral debut with National Symphony Orchestra Ireland in a special concert created alongside his longtime collaborator, John Reynolds. 
 
Born and raised in the mid-1970s in Donaghmede, a Northside suburb of Dublin, Damien trained as a boxer with his older brothers before committing himself to music. His debut album, They Don’t Teach This Shit In School (2000), led to a lasting collaboration with producer John Reynolds. He subsequently toured with Sinead O’Connor and released his second album, Seize The Day in May 2003. Further albums included Shots (2005), To Hell or Barbados (2007), The Rocky Road (2008) and Almighty Love (2012), before a best-of album entitled It’s All Good, in 2014, summarised Damien’s career to date with customary aplomb.  
 
No Force On Earth (2016), featured the protest song “James Connolly,” which Damien had become known for singing at protests against water charges introduced by the Irish government , whilst Soulsun (2017) - paired Damien with a selection of celebrated female vocalists, including Dido, Imelda May - and Union (2018) – an unusual twist on the Christmas duets album, featuring Sinead O’Connor, Kate Tempest and John Grant – showed just how far this unique Irish singer-songwriter had progressed in history’s blink of an eye. In his latest album, Hold Your Joy, Damien Dempsey has produced a powerful, unflinching record. And with its thoughtful reflections on nature, meditation, mindfulness and spirituality, he’s also provided us with a template of how we might live our lives today. The album stands as a creative acme, a tour-de-force of reckoning, and an album that all 2024 releases will be held up against. 
 
Laoise Kelly is regarded as the most significant harper of her generation and an alumnus of the vigorous Armagh Pipers Club. Tiarnán Ó Duinnchinn is a masterly uilleann piper. Together they carry Traditional music out of the norm into a contemplative space where the listener is freed from rigid contours and can let go with imagination and empathy.  

Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin is a Dublin-based singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose musical roots are in the Conamara sean-nós singing tradition. RÓIS is a composer, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and electronic artist from Fermanagh, whose songs breathe new life into a forgotten Ireland. In Osnádúr, Róis' use of electronics, vocals and jazz influences compliment Eoghan’s sean-nós singing style and experimental curiosity as they explore this aspect of the tradition to create a contemporary body of work that reanimates these songs.

Drawing from the wells of traditional and contemporary folk, Ger Wolfe continues to be a gentle and consistent voice on the Irish folk-roots scene, delivering his own unique songwork, all at once lyrical, melodic and poetic Ger begins his third decade of touring and recording with a new album Songs from Freeman’s Ballyvourney Collection, his tenth full album to date .

Presented by NCH in partnership with The Arts Council