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On the annual European music conference and showcase festival: EuroSonic Noorderslag, Ireland will be represented by the bands: And So I Watch You From Afar, Delorentos, Imelda May and Villagers. The event is also being aired by EBU radio station ‘RTÉ/2FM’ to give extended exposure to the performing artists. EuroSonic Noorderslag takes place from 14 – 16 January 2010 in Groningen, the Netherlands.

With 2750 attending music professionals, 250 showcases from national and international talent, 100 panels and meetings and 250 speakers from around the globe, EuroSonic Noorderslag serves as the prime discussion and network platform for the international music industry, focused towards European music, touring, festivals, the (live) music industry and media developments.

Presenting 250 new and upcoming European bands in over 20 venues and stages in the inner city of Groningen, EuroSonic Noorderslag is the place for both industry and festival audience to see which acts will put themselves in the spotlights in 2010.

Expected numbers EuroSonic Noorderslag 2010

2750    International delegates
250      European acts
100      Panel and industry meetings
25        EBU public radio stations
150      European festivals
150      European journalists
35        Nationalities

Irish traditional group Beoga have had their third album The Incident included in the 2010 GRAMMY Awards nomination ballot in the ‘Best Contemporary World Music Album’ category. The album was released in January 2009 to widespread critical acclaim.

The Incident features a mix of original compositions, many penned by band members, alongside traditional favourites. It contains seven instrumental tracks and four songs, including the duet ‘On The Way’, a humorous song about a couple who squabble in their car after getting lost in Donegal, and on which singer Niamh Dunne trades vocals with the song’s composer Ciaran Gribbin (aka Joe Echo).

“It’s a great song,” Niamh enthuses, “and we’re also thrilled that Ciaran is enjoying worldwide success with Madonna’s hit single ‘Celebration’ which he co-wrote.”

The Grammy nomination caps a very successful year for the Antrim-based band, whose touring schedule has taken them to 13 countries. On St. Patrick’s Day the group were chosen as the cover feature for the Wall Street Journal, which described the quintet as “the most exciting traditional band to emerge from Ireland this century.” Then, following a blistering performance at April’s Houston International Festival, Beoga were honoured with a Certificate of Congressional Recognition from the US House of Representatives. “We’re delighted people seem to be getting as much enjoyment listening to our music as we have making it,” says the band’s pianist Liam Bradley.

Another of the year’s highlights for Beoga was their return to the Gig ‘n’ The Bann Festival in Portglenone, County Antrim, where they first formed and where on September 5th they celebrated their 400th concert with a special ‘big band’ performance to a capacity audience. As bodhran player Eamon Murray says, “It was a very memorable evening. We were delighted to return to where we formed the band seven years ago, and to headline the festival.”

And there’s lots more to come, as the Beoga tour bus looks set to chalk up even more miles in 2010, with Europe and USA dates rapidly filling up their diary. They’re also looking forward to their first Australian and New Zealand tours, due to take place in May and June.

For all Beoga news, tour dates and album purchases visit www.beogamusic.com.

Composer and Aosdána member MICHAEL HOLOHAN recently launched his new album, Fields Of Blue And White, in the National Concert Hall.

Fields Of Blue And White is Michael Holohan’s first full-length CD, which includes works that have been commissioned by the National Concert Hall and the AXA Dublin International Piano Competition. It was launched at the NCH on November 6 by the composer Dr. John Buckley.

Born in Dublin in 1956, the former chairman of The Association of Irish Composers was educated at University College Dublin, the Dublin College of Music and Queen’s University, Belfast.

His music has been performed both in Ireland and abroad, and been broadcast by RTÉ, BBC and other international networks. His orchestral works Cromwell (1994), Building Bridges (1995), Leaves Of Glass (1995) and The Lost Land
(1996) have all been premiered by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra.

Running Beast, his collaboration with the playwright Donal O’Kelly, toured Ireland and Europe extensively during 2007 as part of the government’s 400th Commemoration of the Flight of the Earls.
Collaborating regularly with well-known Irish poets such as Seamus Heaney, Richard Murphy, Dermot Healy and Susan Connolly, he won the Celtic Music Prize as RTÉ’s entry at the Celtic Film and Radio Festival in Brittany in 2002 with poet Paul Durcan.

He has lived in Drogheda since 1983, close to the Prehistoric and early Irish Christian sites of the Boyne Valley, which have been a constant source of inspiration to him as a composer.

MISS PAULA FLYNN, the Ballygowan sparkling girl, turned down two album offers before she wrote and released her self-titled debut.

Recording a top 5 Irish chart single while still a Dublin City University student started this breathy vocalist out on the right note.

The 29-year-old Armagh native had toured the cabaret circuit as a backing vocalist to the likes of the late Joe Dolan and Declan Nerney before becoming Jinx Lennon’s musical sidekick for close to a decade. The folk seductress finally made an impression in her own right with a slow, sultry version of David Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’, which was quickly snapped up by Ballygowan execs and finally the Irish public.

After fielding calls along the lines of, “Who’s the girl singing the Bowie song in that Ballygowan ad?”, EMI came on board and decided to release it as a single, which went on to top the Irish charts.

Resisting the pressure to release an album of covers, Paula went back to Dublin City University where she earned her Communications degree. With college out of the way her time was spent in the studio, when she wasn’t making radio documentaries or playing gigs with Jinx Lennon. Her 2008 Christmas single ‘Happy Christmas Valentine’ was the first fruit of the process and was co-produced with ex-Bell X1 mainstay Brian Crosby. Her debut album Miss Paula Flynn was released on 25th September 2009.

Hot Press has labeled her “an artist paying serious allegiance to her own muse”, and recommended that her debut “should be part of everyone’s healthy musical diet.”

www.myspace.com/misspaulaflynn
 

RTÉ 2fm has chosen And So I Watch You From Afar to represent Ireland at Eurosonic 2010, one of Europe’s most premier music showcase events.

This could mean big things for the Belfast hopefuls. As a direct result of their performance at the Eurosonic Festival last year, Irish band Fight Like Apes, RTÉ 2fm’s nomination, were booked to play at six major European festivals including Glastonbury, Benicassim and T in the Park, in addition to Oxegen in Punchestown.
The annual festival, held in Groningen in the Netherlands, has collaborated with the Eurosonic Partnership radio stations for 11 years now to create what is the live music mecca for bands on the rise.

And So I Watch You From Afar (ASIWYFA for short) will play on Friday 15 January 2010 at VERA, one of Europe’s legendary rock clubs, and Jenny Huston will introduce their show live from the Netherlands on RTÉ 2fm.
ASIWYFA have had a busy live career lately, with 165 live shows from Derry to Kiev this year alone. Their self-titled first album has received overwhelmingly positive reviews and was singled out for praise by Hot Press.
Guitarist Rory Friers commented: “It’s a privilege to be involved with Eurosonic this year, we’re looking forward to bringing our noise to the continent again.”

Eurosonic 2010 will host 160 bands in 28 plus venues playing to 18,000 fans in Groningen over 14 and 15 January. Dozens of booking agents, radio and TV stations and 2,600 music professionals will also be there to attend the shows and the hundred or so panel discussions at the festival conference.

Listeners all over Europe can hear all of the shows live on the web as they happen and most of the shows will be on air all over Europe within a few weeks. Fans can also listen back to the performance online at 3fm, Dutch national radio, from Monday January 17. Further details on how to listen live and listen back afterwards are on RTÉ 2fm’s Eurosonic webpage.

Aside from this, the European Commission and the EBU host the European Border Breakers Awards (EBBAs), a full live TV show hosted by Jools Holland recognizing new acts achieving significant airplay and sales outside their own country. RTÉ 2fm listeners can vote online for the acts they want to see perform at the EBBA show and in doing so could win a trip to Eurosonic 2010.

Previous acts at Eurosonic have included Franz Ferdinand, White Lies, Soulwax, Hot Gossip, Peter, Björn & John, The View, Young Knives, Ting Tings, Alphabeat and Irish acts like Fight Like Apes, The Coronas, Cathy Davy, JJ72, Bell X1, Duke Special and The Chalets.

Other Irish acts playing this year at the festival will be announced shortly.

IMRO member Pete St John has been honoured by the Variety Club of Ireland, presenting him with their first ever Gold Heart Award for his outstanding contribution to Irish poetry and song.
The award was recently made to Pete at a special gathering at the Grand Hotel in Malahide during which some of Ireland’s top cabaret artists, including Joe Cuddy and Sonny Knowles, sang some of their favourite songs as a prelude to a special performance of the Pete St John Songbook. Pete was also presented with a sprecially-painted portrait of himself, with the fields of Athenry appropriately visible in the background, by the artist Yvonne Loftus-Kelly.

Eamon Carr, Horslips drummer and fellow IMRO member, made the pertinent point to MQ that “many of Pete’s songs, such as ‘The Fields of Athenry’, ‘Dublin In The Rare Oul Times’ and ‘The Ferryman’, have become such an accepted part of the Irish folk tradtion that many people actually think of them as traditional songs and not contemporary compositions at all. That simply proves how deeply imbued Pete St John is in the tradition of Irish folk music that stretches back to the 12th century and beyond.“

As Pete himself said, “It’s a great honour for me to receive this award from The Variety Club of Ireland, especially as I have admired the great work they have been doing down through the years. But I’ve also been given terrific support by many talented poeple in the music industry who recorded and sang my songs and took them around the world.”

IMRO Chairman Keith Donald pointed out that “not only is Pete an amazingly gifted songwriter and a highly valued member of IMRO, but he’s also done a lot of charity work for a number of different causes and has enthusiastically espoused the interests of Irish songwriters behind the scenes. At one stage he fronted the Songwriters’ Association during a very crucial period in the eighties and nineties, very ably lobbying the relevant organisations and representing the interests of Irish songwriters in dealing first with PRS and then with IMRO.”

Indeed, a list of artists who have recorded Pete St John songs reads like a Who’s Who of the Irish music scene, including as it does The Dubliners, Paddy Reilly, Frank Patterson, Danny Doyle, Johnny McEvoy, Mary Black, Dublin City Ramblers, Luke Kelly, Ronnie Drew, The Barleycorn, Sonny Knowles, Brendan Shine, Daniel O’Donnell and countless others.

Pete St John was born in Dublin, and he began writing songs after his return to his native city from the USA in the late 70’s to find a city greatly changed, and not necessarily for the better. He began reflecting these changes in songs that, between his own versions and those recorded by other artists, have clocked up record sales in millions and been sung by millions in both professional and informal music sessions around the globe. Apart from this new award from the Variety Club of Ireland, Pete has received several awards down through the years, including the IMRO Irish Songwriter of the Year, and continues to write as prolifically as ever.

In 2010, RTE Lyric FM will launch the International Electroacoustic Music Composition Competition, in association with the Centre for Computational Musicology and Computer Music (CCMCM) at UL.

Composers of all ages and nationalities are welcome to submit an electro-acoustic work, between 8 and 10 minutes long. The lucky winner will receive a prize of €3,000, as well as the opportunity to have their track presented at a Soundings Concert in Limerick on March 11. It will also be premiered on RTE Lyric FM.

The winner of 2008’s competition was Enda Grennan, with the computationally striking title ‘Pneumatic Tautologies’.

The deadline for entries is January 22, 2010.

For full details and conditions visit: www.rte.ie/lyricfm/nova

The organisers of the Dublin Electronic Arts Festival have announced that this year’s event was the last. After eight years of showcasing electronic arts, the independently-run festival wrapped up for good in October.
“We’ve decided to finish up on a high note and move on to other projects that we’re anxious to get off the ground – so it’s certainly not the last you’ve heard of us,” says an official statement.

The organisers say that their reasoning will be made clear soon: “As so many people have invested so much time and effort to help us over the years, and so many of you have supported us by coming along to the events, we’ll be putting out a more detailed statement in a couple of weeks as to why we’ve decided to stop DEAF.”

The final show of the festival was no disappointment. Detroit electro bass pioneers Aux 88, Jerome Hill, Rob Hall, Mark Broom and Toirse closed out the event with dynamic performances in the new Good Bits venue.