Fox in documentary on BBC

CLARE musician Edel Fox will feature in a new ten part series currently being shown on BBC. Seinn Liom is a Irish Language Broadcast Fund series from Clean Slate Television in which celebrated musicians revisit the places, people and landscapes in Ireland and Scotland that have influenced their work and led them to discover and compose their most treasured traditional songs and melodies.
Concertina player Edel will feature on the last programme in the series, on Monday, November 29, which was filmed in her home place of Miltown Malbay.
As part of the programme, each musician chose a song, and talked about the sense of place that inspired their choice of song and share the memories and emotions that tune evokes for a particular time, place or event.
Edel chose a tune by Junior Crehan, The Sheep in the Boat. “We were asked to play a tune that helped us to share the place we came from, that shows our beginnings as a musician. I chose a tune written by Junior Crehan because he is from my area. It’s a tune I’ve played quite a bit and one I have taught quite a lot. It was great to film in Miltown, and share my home place.”
Another musician well known throughout Clare already featured in the programme is Marcas Ó Murchú. He is a regular teacher at the Scoil Shamhraidh Willie Clancy and known throughout Ireland and especially Clare.
Seinn Liom, which roughly translates as ‘Play music with me’ or ‘Play along’ is designed to encourage exactly that – as an online tutorial to accompany the television series, available at bbc.co.uk/irish. On the website, viewers who are inspired by the melodies and stories in the series are led through another journey – learning from the performers about the instruments and the chords and notes of the featured songs. The online tutorial, called ‘How to Play’, features split screens, the musical score and close ups of the performer playing the instrument
The series also featured the stories of fiddler Donal O’Connor, accordion player Ciarán Kelly; guitar player Alan Burke; fiddle player Eithne Vallely; cello player Neil Martin; flute player Tíona McSherry; Tiarnán Ó Duinnchinn on the uilleann pipes and Belfast fiddle player Méabh Ní Thuathaláin.
“It was exciting to bring the musicians back on a journey exploring the traditional music that meant most to them,” said Michael Quinn of Clean Slate Television.
Seinn Liom is on Mondays on BBC2 at 10.25pm