Nollaig Casey
Born into a well-known West Cork musical family, by the time Nollaig began to play the violin at the age of eleven she was already proficient in a variety of instruments - notably piano, tin-whistle and uilleann pipes. Throughout her teens she developed her talents both in the fields of classical and traditional music, winning several All-Ireland titles for fiddle-playing (Oireachtas and Fleadh Cheoil na h-Éireann) and traditional singing (Oireachtas) culminating in the award to her of the Bonn Éigse agus Ceoil at Slógadh Náisiúnta na h-Éireann 1972 for the best all-round performer, in consequence of having won first prizes for fiddle, tin-whistle, traditional singing, dancing, solo dramatic scene and poetry-writing! She had already begun to compose and in 1972 won an RTE Radio Competition for newly-composed tunes in the traditional idiom. As a student of the Royal Irish Academy of Music she won the Vandeleur Scholarship and was awarded the prestigious Arthur Darley Memorial Prize at the Dublin Feis Ceoil for the playing of unaccompanied Bach Sonatas and Partitas.
Having graduated from University College Cork with a B. Mus. degree at the exceptionally early age of nineteen, she embarked upon a professional career, firstly with the RTÉ Symphony Orchestra where she remained for three years until she joined Planxty in 1980. When Ireland hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in 1981 Planxty made a guest appearance, playing Timedance, a piece specially written by fellow band-member Bill Whelan and later released as a single, in which Nollaig's distinctive playing was heavily featured. Bill of course went on to write the music for Riverdance - which also started life as a piece of Eurovision interval music: the rest, as they say, is history! Nollaig makes occasional guest appearances in Riverdance, thus completing the circle.
She has subsequently toured with a wide variety of artists (mentioned earlier) in Ireland, the UK., France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Libya, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Estonia, Japan, the U.S.A., Australia and New Zealand.
She is a frequent broadcaster: her countless RTE television appearances have included several on the prime-time Late Late Show, Nighthawks, Saturday Live and Sult as well as on specialist traditional music programmes such as The Pure Drop. She's taken part in a Late Late Show Special on prominent Irish women musicians. She made frequent appearances on the major 1991 BBC TV series Bringing it All Back Home with members of U2, Dónal Lunny and Arty McGlynn, and performed on the prestigious Good Morning America TV show when the series was launched in the USA.
The MP3 sound files below are courtesy of Tara Records and come from the album
"CAUSEWAY" .
Check out their catalog online at Taramusic.com
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Causeway |
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Seo Leo 'Thoil |
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Trá an Phéarla (Strand of the Pearl) |
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Comanche Moon |
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The Trip to Tokyo |
Check out Nollaig Casey's official website: at Nollaigcasey.com
Tara Music Company: www.taramusic.com/