Diarmaid & Donncha Moynihan launched their CD ‘The Lights of Ranzanico’ at The Corner House last Saturday evening.  Diarmaid is a long time member of the Cork Pipers’ Club having learnt and taught at the club over the years.  He is now based away from Cork so it was great to see him back to launch this CD.   You can listen to clips and purchase the CD over on Diarmaid’s site.

The CD itself is a work of genius combining myriad styles and influences from the well-traveled duo.  I’ve only listened to it a few times and it’s a mark of a great album that each listen brings something new to the fore.  At the launch I was surprised to hear that Diarmaid composed ‘The Ivory Lady’ which has been recorded by Lúnasa on their album ‘Sé’.  It’s certainly a stand-out track on that album as well as on ‘The Lights of Ranzanico’.  The mastery of the Irish traditional musicianship is complemented by artists such as Anxo Lorenzo on Galician gaita, Nic France on drums and Tonyho dos Santos on trumpet.  There are plenty of little nooks and crannies afforded by this diverse range of musicians on a tastefully produced album.

The pair had a whole host of musicians with them on the day including their sister Deirdre, Christy Leahy and Karl Nesbitt.

See some more pictures below.

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Another year down, another pipers’ concert at the Spailpin for the Cork Folk Festival.  But what a concert we had this year!  Some familiar faces graced the stage including Dan O’Callaghan, Diarmaid Moynihan with a welcome return from Tomás O Canainn who, for me, was the highlight of the show with his piping, singing, stories, jokes and poetry!  This year also saw Kevin Moore make an accomplished stage debut, the first of many appearances in the coming years here I’m sure.  The variety of musicians and instruments is what made this year’s concert all the more special for me.  We had uilleann pipes, Galician pipes (gaita), pan pipes, war pipes, flutes, low whistles, and guitars.  In particular Anxo Lorenzo who you can see above with the Moynihans blew us away with the sweet sound of his Galician pipes.  Finally, it was great to meet the wonderful piper Jimmy Morrison who kicked off the show with some fine sets.  Unfortunately I don’t have any photos of him myself but I’m sure we’ll get a few in from our official photographer on the day (ahem John ).

I recorded the gig so expect to see some mp3s posted here in the coming days.

See the photos from the show below…

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