By David Hennessy
Belfast is set to come to life with the sound of traditional music and the buzz of excited young and not so young musicians learning about the tradition with concerts, sessions and the affordable and accessible summer school that the festival is becoming so revered for.
In its 6th edition, Belfast Tradfest returns with 350+ events over the eight days.
The festival will have the world’s finest trad musicians and promises an exhilarating week of concert performances, workshops, sessions and community events, bringing together some of the finest talents in the world of traditional arts.
The festival’s mission is to celebrate and preserve the rich heritage of traditional Irish & Scottish music while fostering new talent and creating a vibrant platform for artists to share their craft.
This year’s lineup features an array of internationally acclaimed musicians, singers, and dancers, alongside emerging local artists.
The line-up includes legendary Clannad songstress Moya Brennan, the duo of Zoe Conway & John McIntyre, the American- Irish all-female group Cherish the Ladies, Trans-Atlantic supergroup Lúnasa, West Kerry songbirds Pauline Scanlon & Éilís Kennedy aka Lumiere, Cathal Hayden’s Bow Brothers, the new trio of Mary Dillon, Neil Martin & Dónal O’Connor, Seamie O’Dowd, Co. Tyrone singer Niall Hanna and Beoga’s Damian McKee, Jiggy, the trio of Tara Breen, Pádraig Rynne, and Jim Murray and Lisa Canny’s new 11-piece, all female, superstar collective Biird who will play their first show in Ireland at the Tradfest, and much more.
Dónal O’Connor, Artistic Director of Belfast Tradfest, told The Irish World: “We’re very excited and very proud of the line-up.
“It’s our sixth edition and it’s our biggest one yet.
“We have over 370 events taking place over the 8 days.
“We’re very excited about the big name bands that are coming like Lunasa, Cherish the Ladies, Bow Brothers, Moya Brennan, Lumiere but we’re equally as excited about the emerging acts.
“We have the full range of emerging local acts, emerging national acts right up to the people who are at the very top of their game.
“This follows on from the winter weekend where we had the Bothy Band play their first Irish show since 1979, so we’re very fortunate that we’re able to provide a platform for these events to take place and that the audience support us.”
Biird played their first ever show at London’s St Patrick’s Day concert.
“And there’s a Belfast connection with Biird, a number of the members are from Belfast.
“We’re very, very, very excited. An 11 piece all female band is kind of unheard of and we’re very, very, very happy to support them on their journey, because we think it’s very exciting what they’re doing with their music and how they are changing the narrative around women in trad music.
“That’s doubleheader with the great band Pólca 4 who are guaranteed to get everybody up on the floor, so that’s going to be a rip roaring night of music and dancing and song.”
The Belfast TradFest Summer School of Traditional Music is the hub around which the festival is built. Young and ‘not so young’ come to Belfast to learn from the very best in the business, for a 5-day long programme of summer school events.
This year’s line-up of tutors features no less than seven TG4 Gradam Ceoil Award recipients and amongst the list of world class talent will be Tyrone’s Ryan Molloy, acclaimed Belfast composer and musician Neil Martin, Co. Kerry’s Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, banjo maestro Cathal Hayden, Tara Breen of The Chieftains, Cross Border Orchestra Bagpiper Grahame Harris, Sean Nós dancing dynamo Mary McGuiggan & Belfast’s very own set dancing master Ronán Eastwood.
These workshops are designed not only to hone technical skills but also to immerse attendees in the cultural and historical context of the music.
“One of the things that we kind of sets us apart from other summer schools is that we’re an urban summer school.
“Belfast is easily accessible: We have four airports within 90 minutes. We’re on the major rail and road networks.
“The hub of the festival and the summer school is located in the city centre so there’s fantastic hotel and accommodation available in the city, bars and restaurants all within walking distance, and our own summer school accommodation is directly across the road from where the classes take place.
“So everything is easy and you could do everything by foot.
“The accessibility is great and you’re in the middle of a very vibrant and culturally rich city which has seen huge transformation in the last 25 years.
“It’s a buzzing town now and traditional music is smack bang at the centre of that and it has never been healthier in terms of traditional music.
“You walk into any bar in Belfast now, you’re likely to come upon a session and there’s traditional music in all the venues and clubs so it’s a great time to be coming to visit Belfast.
“One of the things commented last year and previous years is the energy that Tradfest brings to the city when you see young and not so young people walking the streets with instruments on their backs or carrying instruments. It’s a very visual thing so that creates an excitement.
“The tourists, the locals are wondering, ‘Where are these people going, what’s happening? Where’s the session? Where’s the concert? Where’s the craic?’
“That creates a great excitement and it’s wonderful to see.
“Belfast is a post conflict city and 30 years ago, you wouldn’t have walked through the city centre with your instrument visible but now young people are proud to wear the Belfast Tradfest hoodies and T shirts
and are proud to carry their fiddles and banjos and their accordions, guitars and their bagpipes through the city centre.
“It’s something that brings great vibrancy to the town and it’s something we’re very proud of at the Tradfest.”
The annual Belfast TradFest Belfast Harp Festival will feature Monaghan harper Éilis Lavelle, tin Whistle legend Mary Bergin and RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Singer of the year Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, amongst others.
Legendary Belfast virtuoso fiddler Seán Maguire will be celebrated with an annual fiddle concert that features Cathal Hayden of Four men & a Dog fame, Dundalk’s Zoe Conway, current TG4 Gradam Ceoil Composer of the Year Ryan Molloy, Tara Breen of The Chieftains, Lúnasa fiddler Seán Smyth, Belfast’s Conor Caldwell, current Fiddler of London River McGann and Seán Maguire pupil Johnny Murphy with some of his own fiddle students.
Dónal adjudicated the Fiddler of London competition this year where River McGann was victorious.
“He (River) blew myself and Michael Rooney away with his unique and individual take on the fiddle tradition and we’re very excited to see him as part of an incredible lineup of fiddlers to celebrate the great Belfast fiddler, Sean Maguire who was one of the all time greats.
“The lineup at that Sean Maguire concert is spectacular: Fiddlers like Cathal Hayden, Tara Breen from the Chieftains, Zoe Conway who was a previous adjudicator of the Fiddler of London, Niall Murphy who has just spent six years touring with Nathan Carter all over the world and many other great fiddlers.
“It’s wonderful that River is in amongst that pool of incredible talent and will be well set to carry himself in that company and we’re excited to see his performance.
“We have the Dunville’s Irish Whiskey Session Trail and it’s over 70 sessions in many of the best traditional and most well loved bars in Belfast.
“The session trail list is populated with so many brilliant musicians, incredible musicians who people pay good money to see all over the world.
“One of the highlights of the festival every year is what we call the Pride Céilí. Iit’s in association with Belfast Pride and that’s always a great, great, great event: Lots of people who are dancing experts mixing with people who have never danced a céilí or a set dance before so that’s a real highlight of the calendar every year.”
Belfast TradFest prides itself on its cross cultural and cross traditions ethos.
Although it has a dark history, Belfast is now a vibrant city for visitors.
“I think there’s a kind of an international intrigue out there around post conflict societies.
“The Good Friday Agreement is considered to be the most successful peace settlement of recent times and we’re very lucky to live through the advantages of that and to be able to invite people out onto the streets to celebrate traditional music from all backgrounds, from all creeds.
“That’s one of the key things about Tradfest: That our ethos is cross cultural, cross tradition and that we bring people together from all religious and political divides under the umbrella of traditional music to celebrate the fiddle and the flute and the fife and the drum.
“The transformation in the city is miraculous.
“I moved to Belfast in 1996, between the two ceasefires, and you just didn’t walk through the city centre at night.
“And now during the Tradfest, there’ll be musicians and music pouring out of all the pubs onto the streets.”
The festival first took place in 2017 and ran for three yeas before COVID disrupted things.
“We feel like we’re just getting going and we’re stepping into the public consciousness in Belfast particularly, but I think on a national and international level as well.
“We get a huge amount of visitors from all over the world so our audience is 50% Belfast, 25% the rest of the island and 25% the rest of the world.
“We’re attracting people from Japan, from Argentina, from all of the European countries, North America, of course, and from Australia and giving people a reason to come to Belfast to visit the city, but also to spend time with these master musicians, the best musicians in the world.
“We’re very keen that our young and not so young local musicians get time with these master musicians not only to learn about the music but also to learn what their philosophy in music and life is.
“That’s something we feel is very important: That we enrich the lives of the people who take part in the summer school and take part in the festival.
“That’s something that benefits everybody.
“The rising tide lifts all boats.
“One of the things we’re very proud of is we run a bursary scheme.
“We reach out to individuals and organisations and businesses, we ask them to sponsor a bursary so that a young musician can attend the summer school who may not otherwise be in a position to attend.
“This year, it looks like we’re going to be giving out 60 bursaries and it’s transformative really.
“We get things like ‘it was the best week of my life’, ‘it has changed my life’.
“The bursary scheme and the summer school are the things that really fuel our passion to continue.
“The festival and the concerts are brilliant. It gives a lot of people joy.
“Personally, we get the most satisfaction out of watching people just having a great time at the summer school and improving their music and learning more about the tradition and immersing themselves deeper and deeper into the tradition.
“It’s a never ending journey that they’re starting out on and this is a good foot up at the beginning of their journey.”
It sounds like there is very little of a divide between performers and audience…
“No, there’s huge integration and you can meet your heroes at Belfast Tradfest.
“You can learn from your heroes, you can listen to your heroes and you can meet and have the craic with them.
“All of the tutors and performers tell us that it’s one of their favourite festivals of traditional music on the planet and they’re all mad to come back year after year because everything is fun, is accessible, is easy.
“And the enthusiasm which they’re greeted and the welcome which they get in the city of Belfast is second to none so it’s not a hard task to get people to come and perform and play at Belfast Tradfest.”
Belfast Tradfest runs 21- 29 July.
For more information, click here.
