Gradam Ceoil award for local musician

A Kinvara resident has been named Musician of the Year 2013 by TG4. Dermot Byrne will be presented with the Gradam Ceoil in University Concert Hall, Limerick at the Traditional Music Awards next month.

Dermot hails from Buncrana, Donegal but has lived in Kinvara for the past two years. He has been one of the country’s top box players since his teenage years and is a long-serving member of the internationally-renowned group Altan, as well as performing regularly with the top names in traditional music and releasing solo recordings too. He played in Connolly’s Bar in Kinvara on Monday night, as he does every Monday as part of a session with local musicians there.

“It is a huge honour for me to win the Gradam Ceoil especially looking at the list of people who have received it in the past and it is great to be part of that list,” Dermot told The Clare Champion.

Previous winners of the Gradam Ceoil include Charlie Harris, Noel Hill, Martin Hayes and Seán Keane.

Growing up, Dermot had the good fortune to meet all the greats of Donegal music including Johnny Doherty, Con Cassidy, Tommy Peoples, James Byrne, Danny Meehan and many more. They made a great impact on him and he went on to develop his own unique style.

His accordion-playing is a combination of effortlessness and subtlety and this makes him a very intricate musician. As well as his mastery of the Donegal style and repertoire, Dermot can turn with ease to other styles and traditions such as French musette or South American choro music.

Dermot guested on two Altan recordings, The Red Crow and Island Angel, before joining the band full-time in 1994. He has recorded seven CDs with the band including Blackwater, Runaway Sunday, Another Sky, The Blue Idol and The Poison Glen.

Dermot has also guested on collaborations with Séamus and Manus McGuire, Sharon Shannon, The Chieftains, Salsa Celtica, Steve Cooney, Dezi Donelly, Bríd Harper, Frankie Gavin, Tommy Peoples, Tim O’Brien and the late jazz violinist, Stephane Grappelli.

His début solo recording released in 1995 features accompaniment from Steve Cooney, Trevor Hutchinson and Dónal Lunny. He plays both accordion and melodeon on this CD. He made another recording in 2001 entitled 2 Worlds United, which was recorded with Ontario-based fiddler Pierre Schryer and included French, Irish, Scottish and Cape Breton tunes.

In 2011, he recorded a duet CD with French harpist Floriane Blancke which again displays his eclectic taste combining French waltzes with newly composed pieces, a tune by Turlough O’Carolan and some traditional tunes from Donegal and other counties.

Dermot will be presented with a specially-commissioned piece by sculptor John Coll as well as a stipend at the Gradam Ceoil Concert in UL on March 30. Kilrush man and founding member of The Chieftains Michael Tubridy will also receive the Hall of Fame award on the night. At the concert, hosted by Aoife Ní Thuairisg and Páidí Ó Lionáird, the 2013 Gradam recipients will be joined on stage by their special musical guests. 

It will be recorded for broadcast on TG4 on the following day Easter Sunday, March 31 and promise a unique, star-studded line-up of musicians and award-presenters. This year’s concert is being organised to celebrate The Gathering Ireland 2013 and will showcase the impact that Ireland’s finest musicians have had on the world.