<\/p>\n
The Inishowen Trad Orchestra and Choir will perform a new suite of Dinny McLaughlin\u2019s compositions at two concerts as part of this year\u2019s F\u00e9ile na hInse.<\/span><\/p>\n The Inishowen Traditional Music Project\u2019s (ITMP)’s annual F\u00e9ile na hInse<\/a><\/strong><\/span> is celebrating the music, song and dance of Dinny McLaughlin from Shandrum with a weekend of events in Buncrana.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Dinny McLaughlin was a virtuoso fiddle player, singer, poet, dancer, multi-instrumentalist, composer,\u00a0and teacher who devoted his life to the cultural heritage of Inishowen. He performed internationally with his lifelong friends in the band Aileach and taught music and dance throughout Inishowen and Derry.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The last performance by the Inishowen Trad Orchestra and Choir was a sold out event in the National Concert Hall, Dublin in 2023 with both Dinny McLaughlin and President Michael D Higgins in attendance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The first concert, on Saturday, April 25 at 8pm,\u00a0 is now sold out, and a second concert is to be held in the Inishowen Gateway Hotel at 2pm on Sunday, April 26.<\/span><\/p>\n Altan\u2019s Martin Tourish has been commissioned by Inishowen Trad Music Project this year to write a new piece of music to celebrate Dinny.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI had already written a movement in the previous show [staged in the National Concert Hall in 2023] dedicated to Dinny, so it was a case of finding what aspect of Dinny had I not covered, because there are so many aspects to Dinny. He was obviously a wonderful tune composer, performer, poet and singer, he was a dancer, a teacher and a wonderful character. Within his music he wrote a lot of different kinds of music \u2013 jigs, reels, and hornpipes, really comical songs, very spiritual songs and classical pieces as well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI decided to settle on the idea of Dinny as a teacher. You learn the tune slowly from the master performer and you repeat the process slowly till you\u2019re standing on your own two feet. I have Dinny performing a slow air – his \u201cThe Moving Spirit\u201d and I\u2019ve got the orchestra coming in one by one and then taking over the melody, and playing it to symbolise what is happening when a student is learning Irish music, and Dinny reads The Moving Spirit which is a poem about how he learned music from Pat Mulhern.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAngel Friends is another one, then, that is set to The Golden Chair of Music. It\u2019s a beautiful reflection from Dinny, a meditation on grief and on death. It talks about when the smoke goes up in the morning, who knows what the day\u2019s going to bring us, whether it\u2019s news that is sad, and how we are going to deal with that. It\u2019s a piece that he wrote in honour of the victims of the Omagh bombing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cDinny\u2019s legacy is that there are 120 musicians and singers on stage playing up to world class standard. Playing very complicated music with such joy and such skill, and that 120\u00a0 on stage isn\u2019t the half of it. There are way more excellent, wonderful musicians up in Inishowen and that surrounding area \u2013 he rekindled the whole culture and then passed on the baton to people like Roisin and Clodagh and the other teachers in the area.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s important that people are proud of their local culture. This is music from the local area, it celebrates the local area. It\u2019s absolutely world class. When are you going to be able to go and hear a 120-piece orchestra and choir? You\u2019d want to be going to the 3 Arena in Dublin for it. This is local music, and the sound of a 120 piece orchestra and choir is so powerful it makes the hair stand on the back of your neck,\u201d said Mr Tourish.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s not a venue big enough for this in Donegal. Of course Donegal music is so internationally famous. Altan, we play in America and Japan, Europe and all around the world, and lots of people come and visit Donegal because they love the music, and isn\u2019t it crazy when there isn\u2019t\u00a0 a stage big enough. Carpenters had to be brought in and a stage built for this performance.\u00a0 It\u2019s not the sort of thing you can actually stage every year, so it\u2019s an enormous achievement.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d like to congratulate Roisin and Neil and Clodagh and Lorna and Anthony and the whole team, everybody, they all just put in an enormous amount of work – it\u2019s breathtaking what they do. It\u2019s a real credit to the organisers, and it\u2019s an absolute privilege and an honour to work with everybody in Inishowen, and we\u2019re really looking forward to having a blast in the Gateway,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n