Conertina player releases first solo album

IN Cleary’s ‘the Blondes’ Bar, Miltown Malbay, a five-year-old Edel Fox begged her father to arrange for her to hold another young musician’s concertina.

That was the start of her love of concertina music, an event that would carve out her future path towards becoming one of the country’s finest traditional concertina players.
Many people probably only became aware of Edel’s impressive talent as a concertina player when she was named as the TG4 Young Musician of the Year in 2004 but many Clare musicians were well aware of her gift from when she was a young girl.
Edel, now 24, grew up in Miltown Malbay, where her father, Michael is from. Her mother, Marie, is from Killernan, near Coore in West Clare.
“There was a lot of music on my mother’s side of the family. My grandfather, Eddie Healy, was a folk singer and my grandmother, Jo, played the piano. They were both very involved in music locally also.
My mother is also a great singer, although she doesn’t perform. My father doesn’t play music but he is very interested and supportive of music. When the Bothy Band became prominent, he became a huge fan and he pretty much became an addict to traditional music after that,” Edel recalls.
She recounts the whole story of her first introduction to a concertina. “I can remember when I was just five, Dad brought me into Blondes pub in Miltown during Willie Clancy Week for a session. There was a Clare girl there called Lorraine O’Brien playing the concertina. Basically, I nagged my dad to ask her dad if I could hold the concertina. So I got to hold a concertina for the first time and from then it was in my head that I was going to play the concertina,” she says.
About a year later, her father saw an ad for Noel Hill giving lessons in the West County Hotel and he discussed with Edel’s mother about her starting music classes.
“She was hesitant and thought it was a mad idea and that I was too young but she agreed anyway. She came to classes with me, which was a great help because she had a great ear for music and picked up so much and continued the lessons on with me at home. She said I had a great ear from the start too. She says that once I spent about a year mastering the basics of the concertina, I more or less took off on my own, really getting the hang of playing the concertina.”
Edel also credits the musicians who organised the sessions in Blondes’ for bringing her along as a musician.
“I wasn’t very long playing, when my parents brought me to another session in Blondes. I went in with my little wheatstone concertina, only knowing one or two tunes. The sessions back in those days were organised by Michael Mahony and Peadar Crotty, who both passed away this year, and Pete Haugh. Anyway, the first few times I went to the session they asked me to play these tunes to include me, which was a great motivation for me. Then I started picking up bits of tunes from them and I’d go home and practise them and come back the next time able to play a bit more and a bit more. I’ll never forget them because they gave me great encouragement by constantly involving me in the sessions,” Edel remarks.
The sessions in Blondes’ are still regular and Edel drops in from time to time.
“It’s lovely to see other young musicians now attending the sessions and older musicians bringing them along, like I was brought along as a child. That’s one thing about traditional music in Clare, there is such a strong music community for musicians to fit into. I’ve been fortunate to grow up in Clare because in terms of traditional music there are huge opportunities that aren’t in every county, here. I have friends who are musicians from other counties and there wasn’t the same level of local support for music. Music here in Clare is very much focussed on the community, making it accessible and also on the tradition that has grown up all around it. There is also huge respect for older musicians, some of whom have passed away, who pioneered traditional music here, including Willie Clancy, Junior Crehan, Bobby Casey, Kitty Hayes, to name just some.”
Edel also feels that she was lucky that teachers all through her school years were supportive of her love of music.
“I went to primary school in Miltown Malbay and to secondary school in Scoil Mhuire, Ennistymon until Junior Certificate and then to Spanish Point. All the way through school, teachers were very supportive of my love of music and nurtured it in me. Going to school most days as well as my school bag I also had my concertina because I was often called upon to play for school functions, masses, concerts and things like that. Playing the concertina has really been a huge part of my identity and I do feel that it is practically an extension of me. I’d say that I almost always have my concertina with me,” she says.
She went on to complete a BA in Irish music and dance in the University of Limerick and during the course, she also took up the fiddle and was taught by Siobhán Peoples and Eileen O’Brien.
“After I completed my degree I took a year away from study and moved to Ennis. I started teaching the concertina in Maoin Ceoil an Chlair and in Miltown Malbay. I also gave concertina tutorials on the degree programme in UL. As part of my degree, on my work placement I worked with a television production company called Forefront on the Fleadh programme for RTÉ. I also worked as a researcher for a new traditional music programme called The Reel Deal, a series that was shown on RTÉ last year. I loved that work, so much so that I applied for the Cúrsa Cumarsáide in UCG, which would give me a communications qualification through Irish,” Edel explains.
Around the same time she applied for a masters in music therapy in UL and made the decision when she got accepted onto the programme that she would go that route.
“I may revisit the television work again in the future as it is something I’m hugely interested in. Winning the TG4 Young Person of the Year Award in 2004 definitely opened doors for me and certainly raised my profile. I am very grateful for that. I was hugely proud of the award,” she adds.
She completed her final exams on the music therapy course a few weeks ago and is awaiting her results.
“Music therapy is a relatively new profession in Ireland but I find that whole area so interesting. It opened my mind to psychology and the positive and therapeutic effects of music. I have an innate understanding of that myself because subconsciously I have always found music, either playing or listening to music, extremely therapeutic. As part of the course, I worked in mental health and with troubled adolescents. I very much hope to work in the area of mental health in the future but I am very much open to opportunities which come my way.”
Edel also plans to travel, probably to Australia, for a year and experience a different country and culture for a while.
“I definitely will bring my concertina with me, sure I couldn’t go anywhere without it,” she laughs.
This summer she will be going to America, where she will be touring with two fiddlers from Leitir Fraic, Liz and Yvonne Kane.
“This will be my sixth summer in-a-row in the States. I’ve been going to the Catskills Irish Arts Week in East Durham, New York. It is a fantastic festival with a great mix of Irish, Irish-American and American musicians. A large contingent of well-known Irish musicians go over regularly, including Matt Cranitch, Michael Rooney and June McCormack. That is right after Willie Clancy Week in the middle of July. After that, Liz, Yvonne and I will do three weeks of gigs all around the east coast of the United States. It will be pretty much non-stop but I am very much looking forward to it.”
In 2006, she and fiddler Ronan O’Flaherty toured for six weeks in the States.
“That was definitely the best summer of my life. We had known each other for years through the music scene but started playing together regularly when we were in UL together. We are pretty much best friends and we love playing music together. I think our music works well as a combination,” she comments.
She is now very excited at the upcoming release of her first solo album, Chords and Beryls, in the middle of June. Despite her very creative talent, Edel could not come up with a name for the album herself.
“I wanted something which would reflect me and how I play. My mum’s aunt, Teresa McCarthy, was a whistle player and she used the word beryl to describe a twist in a tune, or variation in a melody. A well-known tune of Mrs Crotty’s was called The Reel with the Beryl. Mam and Dad rang me from Lanzarote with the name – it had come to Mum when they were on holiday there.”
She says that the album is a collection of tunes she loves playing.
“Some are pieces I’ve known for year and others I’ve come across more recently. I didn’t feel ready to do a solo album before. Previously, I was daunted about going into a studio recording a solo album but that nervousness went. Around Christmas, I got the notion that I wanted to do it and I went for it. A lot of people thought I was mental, with my finals coming up in college but I work well under pressure.
“There are 13 tracks on it, including tunes from West Clare that I learned from older musicians and newly composed pieces by Anne Conroy Burke, Neilidh Mulligan and John Dwyer. The album also features Jack Talty, Padraic O’Reilly, Mick Conneely, Brian Mooney, Jackie Daly, Johnny Ringo McDonagh and Una McLoughlin. It was recorded in Malbay Studios with Martin O’Malley,” Edel says.
She hopes that this will be the first of many solo albums she releases, as well as a number of collaborations with other musicians.
She also has a number of gigs coming up in Clare and around the country and she continues to teach concertina four to five evenings a week in Limerick, Maoin Ceoil an Chlair and in Miltown Malbay.