Irish Festival Sea Sessions at the Liverpool Phil

The Irish Sea Sessions
Liverpool Philharmonic Hall
Friday 22nd October 2010

7/10
The cream of Irish and Liverpool musicians came together for a celebration of music from both sides of the Irish Sea to a tumultuous welcome from Irish music aficionados.

This was the first specially devised ‘meeting of musicians’ for the Liverpool Irish Festival 2010, of music that gets feet tapping and souls a-singing, a homage to traditional music both sides of the water.

Led by lauded double-bass player Bernard O’Neill, the whooping audience was treated to beautiful melodies and tunes by a plethora of talented musicians and singers.

Amongst the 14-strong gifted ensemble was well-known Liverpool-Irish musician Terry Clarke-Coyne,
mainstay of the Liverpool Irish Centre in its heyday, showing off superb dexterity on the flute, with a haunting rendition of The Red-Haired Lass and The Merry Blacksmith. Terry has won top honours in many world championships.

The effervescent Naimh Parsons wowed the crowd with her beautiful resonant voice, firstly with the sad Gaelic tale Fear a Bhata and later with her own interpretation of The Water is Wide, soulful and expressive with beautiful phrasing.

Multi-talented Lizzie Nunnery sang the anti-empire protest song, England Loves A Poor Boy, with her striking voice and joined in with many more group pieces, including an a capela version of "The Leaving of Liverpool" to round off the show in which her fellow musicians joined one by one to end with a rousing version of this well-known traditional song.

The musicians played a variety of traditional instruments including guitars, flutes, fiddles, bodhran, and whistles creating vibrant, evocative resonant sounds.

Amongst the ensemble were many brilliant musicians, too many to name, but flautist Eimear McGeown from Northern Ireland and Becky Taylor on the Uillerann pipes offered haunting melodies that wafted images of Irish mists around the space. And Liverpool born singer-songwriter Ian Prowse led the musicians in a rousing rendition of his song – recorded by Christy Moore – Does This Train Stop on Merseyside.

What was missing was more audience participation and perhaps a couple of Irish dancers on stage. Naimh broke into a dance towards the end of the show as the audience, warmed up and ready to stomp themselves, stood up and clapped along with the music.

Praise was heaped on organisers Simon Glinn, Executive Producer and Toby Mills, Production Manager, by compere Bernard O’Neill, who said the talented musicians were excited to have come together to celebrate songs and tunes that had endured many ‘rough seas’, to bring to Liverpool a new presentation of talent and tradition.

For a first show of this kind it was a triumph and hopefully will be repeated in years to come.

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