Friday 16th August 2024
Location: The Skough Sessions at Moloney’s bar
We are thrilled to have Michael Rooney and June Mc Cormack coming to the back room of Moloneys pub. This will be a very special evening and tickets will fly out the door so be sure book good and early to avoid dissapointment!.
“Their music radiates exquisite taste, exemplary tempo, sensitivity within sinew, and soulful originality”
The Irish Echo
“Mc Cormack lures a gorgeous woody flute tone, an earthy counter to Rooney’s fine-fingered harp. Lands End is a thing of rare beauty where less is questionably more.” The Irish Times
‘Its an ideal musical marriage, two distinct instruments and two instrumentalists of distinct styles locked in the common cause of producing sounds rigorous in tradition yet imaginative in scope and effect’ . Earle Hitchner
‘Tobar an Cheoil’ is the third collaborative album by Monaghan-born harper Michael Rooney and Sligo-born flutist June McCormack, having previously released ‘Land’s End’ in 2006 and ‘Draíocht’ in 2004. Both players have substantial musical credentials. Together as ‘Draíocht’, they have toured extensively, throughout the States, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Their duet playing is outstanding, rich, melodic and subtle, with a unique blend of harp and flute. They have already achieved great things individually,including major awards and two acclaimed recordings.
With over 55 minutes of music, ‘Tobar an Cheoil’ offers a fourteen-track album with a difference, a mixture of traditional tunes and features twelve of Michael’s original compositions. The album has an unusual variety of tunes, incorporating several reel and jig sets, in addition to newly composed hop-jigs, slip jigs, a number of airs and planxties by Michael.
The album features a number of guest musicians, including Jack Warnock on guitar, Maria Ryan and Lucia Mac Partlin on violins, Aoife Burke on cello and Seamie O’Dowd on guitar.
A native of County Sligo, June grew up immersed in the fiddle and flute music of Sligo and was recipient ofthe TG4 Young Traditional Musician of the Year Award in 1998. A primary school teacher by profession,June has published two Irish flute tutorials, ‘Fliuit’, ‘Fliuit 2’ and most recently, ‘The Book of Sligo Tunes’.
Michael is a prolific composer and is widely regarded as one of the foremost players of the traditional Irish harp. Michael was announced as the TG4 Composer of the Year 2017. Among the highlights of his recent orchestral and ensemble compositions are ‘The Deep Ravine’ (2023), The Ulster Suite’ (2022), ‘Clairseoireacht’ (2022), ‘Constance’ (2019), The Famine Suite (2019), The Macalla Suite (2016), The DeCuellar Suite (2011), The Reconciliation Suite (2015) and several more.
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