About The Album
We’re delighted to announce the forthcoming release of the album “An Irish Viola / Vióla Gaelach’ by Séamus McGuire (viola) with the multi award-winning guitarist Steve Cooney.
The recording, due for release on November 19th 2021, will be the first album of Irish traditional music featuring the viola as the main instrument.
The warm deep tones of Séamus’ viola resonate closely with the human voice, full of emotion and expression. Steve Cooney’s exquisite guitar playing brings the music to another level. Welcome to the lower-pitch world of the viola!
"The combination of the gorgeous mellow sound of the viola and the sweetly singing guitar gives a dreamy other-worldly mood to the music…." Jackie Small
"Séamus lights up the strings with what you always know is pure soul and so you stop to listen to the sound and the story of it, even if you’re supposed to be playing." Gerry O’Beirne
"An Irish Viola / Vióla Gaelach is a radiant achievement by two musicians at the summit of their skills" - Earle Hitchner
"The viola sounds vibrantly alive, played by Séamus with a meticulous touch bearing no hint of overstatement. Steve has established an ideal complement on guitar to the melodic viola-playing while not abridging his own vibrant musical imprint. Both musicians have managed to strike just the right balance between their instruments, and the interlacing itself borders on the miraculous" - Earle Hitchner
"The well-deep tones of the Viola have never previously anchored an album of traditional music, and Seamus McGuire's decision to shine a spotlight on this mellowest of instruments is very welcome." - Siobhan Long, Irish Times.
Watch out for more information soon!
Seamus McGuire
Born in the traditional Irish music heartland of south County Sligo, Séamus McGuire grew up in a family which nurtured both traditional and classical music. Seamus got his first lessons in traditional fiddle-playing from his parents Paddy and Jo at about the age of five, and began classical violin lessons the following year. Ten years later, aged sixteen, he won the prestigious senior Fiddler of Dooney competition in Sligo and a few years later the Oireachtas senior fiddle competition in Dublin. He was soon recognized as one of the country's most promising young traditional fiddle-players.
Looking back, Seamus remembers many positive influences on his playing when growing up in Sligo. Legendary Irish-American fiddle-players such as Lad O'Beirne were visitors to the McGuire family home in Sligo during their holidays from New York. Seamus recalls Lad bringing gifts of tape-recordings of sessions he shared in New York with Andy McGann and Eleanor Kane. During a meeting at the Fleadh Ceoil in Sligo with another iconic fiddle-player Paddy Killoran, the young Séamus’ autograph book was signed by Paddy with the encouraging note ‘from one violinist to another’. A few years later, another family friend Charlie Lennon composed the reel Master Séamus for Seamus aged 14. This was one of Charlie’s earliest compositions and is still regarded as one of his finest.
Steve Cooney
Steve Cooney is best known for his development of an influential style of guitar accompaniment to traditional Irish dance music which he developed in West Kerry, and for which he won the National Entertainment Award with Séamus Begley in 1997.
Born in Melbourne Australia in 1953, he came to Ireland in 1980 and maintains his connections with the Aboriginal culture there, into which he was initiated. He has ancestral links with Tipperary, Cavan and Galway.
He has participated in making more than 250 CD's, either as a guitar or bass player or as producer and engineer. Also a poet and songwriter, he has worked with many iconic international artists in rock and country music but his primary focus is Irish traditional music, and fusions of that genre.
He recently released a CD of solo guitar interpretations of ancient harp tunes, Ceol Ársa Cláirsí: Tunes of the Irish Harpers for Solo Guitar. He is also recording fusion music with his band Éiníní.