For immediate release: March 9, 2017

CONTACT:Rebecca Bailey, Publicity Coordinator/WriterHopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth Collegerebecca.a.bailey@dartmouth.edu603.646.3991

Epic new spins on ancient Gaelic tunes by transatlantic supergroup, April 21

Photo: The Gloaming, by Rich Gilligan. L-R: Caoimhin Ó Raghallaigh, Iarla Ó Lionáird, Martin Hayes, Thomas Bartlett and Dennis Cahill.

HANOVER, NH—The transatlantic, transgenerational supergroup The Gloaming—which takes Celtic music to breathtaking new heights while staying true to its roots—performs Friday, April 21, 8 pm, in the Hop’s Spaulding Auditorium.

Formed in 2011, the group joins two Irish music legends—fiddler master Martin Hayes and vocalist Iarla Ó Lionáird [ear-lah o-linnard]—with New York indie rock pianist Thomas Bartlett (aka Doveman, a Vermont native and colleague of Sufjan Stevens and The National) plus American guitarist Dennis Cahill and Irish hardanger innovator Caoimhin Ó Raghallaigh [Kwee-veen Oh Rye Allah]. These five musicians, each with highly successful individual careers, spin epic new interpretations of ancient Gaelic dance tunes and ballads, pairing memorable, yearning melodies with a progressive style.

Hayes will give an intermediate-level fiddle master class on Friday, April 21,

2:15-3:45 pm, in the Hop’s Alumni Hall. Fiddlers from campus and the community are welcome to sign up to learn traditional Irish bowing techniques, melodies and improvisations. The class is geared toward advanced players but open to students at all levels. Registration to participate is $10 and is through hop.dartmouth.edu or 603.646.2422. Observers are welcome at no charge.

Now releasing its second album, The Gloaming (2), the group continues to enthrall listeners. The Irish Times described the music as, “free, unforced and deeply moving in every sense...It's a case of five musicians just going for it and realizing that this is really all it's about.”

Hayes, Cahill and Ó Raghallaigh have been recognized for extending Celtic music traditions, balancing tradition with new influences. Bartlett is well known in the independent rock scene for his work with artists including Glen Hansard, Sam Amidon and Antony and the Johnsons. Ó Lionáird, while eminent in the transcendent sean-nos tradition of unaccompanied ballad singing, has made many groundbreaking recordings with the Afro Celt Sound System. While the group burns on traditional dance tunes interpreted with virtuosic fire and surprising layers of harmony and rhythms, it also transports listeners with gorgeous settings for Celtic ballads sung by Ó Lionáird. Said NPR Music, “Ó Lionáird possesses one of the world's most beautiful voices—and it's framed to perfection…[by] the all-star quintet…Wistful, tender and completely transporting.”

Hayes convened the group six years ago in Grouse Lodge Studios in Ireland's County Westmeath as “a musical experiment in collaboration between five like-minded musicians,” he told Mother Jones magazine. “I was looking for an integrated and unique sound, not just something easily thrown together. There was no agenda and no barriers or boundaries to what anybody could contribute. I had worked with and known all the musicians involved for many years and I had an intuitive sense that bringing this combination of people together could produce something very special. It was an exercise in trust and belief that has been very rewarding and satisfying.”

Hayes’ connection to Bartlett is a sweet tale of just how personal the world of music can be. Raised in Vermont, Bartlett was 12 when his family took a vacation in Ireland and went to hear Hayes play. On their son’s insistence, the family went to Hayes’ every gig during their stay, eventually drawing his notice. They met and hit it off, and upon returning home the single-minded Bartlett contacted Hayes’ manager and booked the fiddler for a concert in Vermont, cementing a friendship that eventually led to this collaboration.

“We basically didn't know for quite a while that we were being booked by a 12-year-old!” Hayes told Mother Jones. “But the gig worked out really well. He figured out how to sell out the gig, get the PA, the publicity and everything. I wish all my gigs were as good.”

During Bartlett’s teen years, he and best friend Sam Amidon played for contra dances. He told Travel + Leisure magazine: “Contra dance music has a lot in common with Irish music, and so Sam and I got very into the Irish traditional stuff. It is, in a weird way, the music of my teenage years. This project is really a return to that for me.”

The group’s first Irish tour later that year was sold out, and touring since then has taken them throughout Europe, North American and Australia. The Gloaming’s debut was widely acclaimed as one of the finest recordings of 2014, featuring on many year-end best lists including Mojo, NPR Music and the Irish Times; was picked by The Guardian as The One Album You Should Hear This Week; won a BBC Radio 2 Folk Award; and the Meteor Choice Music Prize for Album of the Year.

Live, The Gloaming delivers "a remarkable set,” wrote The Guardian. “One can only marvel at the intuitive understanding between the five. But it's not just jigs and reels that make them remarkable: the opening Song 44, with Bartlett holding down his piano strings to mute them, and violins scraping ominously…[is] a staggering display of both emotion and virtuosity."

Hayes’ soulful interpretations of traditional Irish music are recognized the world over for their exquisite musicality and irresistible rhythm. He has toured and recorded with Cahill for over 20 years (including

performing at the White House in 2011), and has collaborated with such extraordinary musicians in the classical, folk and contemporary music worlds as Bill Frisell, Ricky Skaggs, Jordi Savall, Brooklyn Rider, the Irish Chamber Orchestra and, recently, Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project, as well as many of the greatest Irish musicians over the past 30 years. He has contributed music, both original and traditional arrangements to modern dance, theater, film and television. He has been recognized as Musician of the Year from TG4, Irish language television; and Person of the Year by the Irish Arts Center and the American Irish Historical Society, both based in New York City. The recipient of six All-Ireland championships before the age of 19, Hayes spent his youth playing in his late father, P. Joe Hayes’ Tulla Celi Band, which has now been together for more than 70 years.

Ó Lionáird was born in 1964 in West Cork, an area was rich in singers—including the 12 Ó Lionáird children, to whom many traditional songs were passed down from their mother and grandmother. Ó Lionáird began performing at age five, gave his first radio broadcast at age seven and recorded his first sean-nos at age 12 for the Gael Linn label. Since then he has worked in radio, film and TV production, and is the lead singer for the Afro Celt Sound System, and also completed a MA in Ethnomusicology at the University of Limerick.

Born in 1981 in Vermont, as a teen Bartlett formed the band Popcorn Behavior with Amidon and recorded three albums. Upon moving to New York in 2001, he soon began performing with Chocolate Genius and Elysian Fields, and under the name Doveman began cultivating a diverse and high-powered musical circle with whom he worked as singer, pianist, composer and producer.

In addition to playing with The Gloaming, Ó Raghallaigh performs internationally as a solo musician, in duos with Dan Trueman, Mick O'Brien and Brendan Begley, and as a member of This is How We Fly, and has recorded 12 albums. His instrument is the 10-string violin that is a cross between a Norwegian hardanger fiddle and a Baroque viola d'amore, with five strings that are played on and five “sympathetic” strings that lend the instrument a gorgeous resonance.

Born in 1954 in Chicago, Cahill began studying guitar at age nine and developed in the 1980s and ‘90s into one of the most respected and innovative guitarists in traditional and neo-traditional Irish music. He began playing with Hayes in the 1980s, and as a duo the two have toured the world and made three recordings. NPR called him “a subtle guitar master. With Cahill you get delicate support. It’s a rhythm that keeps the tune in; that accents and colors but never overtakes. It’s brilliant restraint that serves the music and perfectly suits his partner.”

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CALENDAR LISTINGThe GloamingA transatlantic, transgenerational supergroup, The Gloaming takes Celtic music to breathtaking new heights while staying true to its roots. Two Irish music legends—fiddler Martin Hayes and vocalist Iarla Ó Lionáird—are joined by New York indie rock pianist Thomas Bartlett (aka Doveman, a colleague of Sufjan Stevens and The National) plus guitar and hardanger fiddle to spin epic new interpretations of ancient Gaelic dance tunes and ballads. Friday, April 21, 8 pmSpaulding Auditorium, Hopkins Center, Hanover NH$25-40, $10 for Dartmouth students, $17-19 for youthInformation: hop.dartmouth.edu or 603.646.2422

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Founded in 1962, the Hopkins Center for the Arts is a multi-disciplinary academic, visual and performing arts center dedicated to uncovering insights, igniting passions, and nurturing talents to help Dartmouth and the surrounding Upper Valley community engage imaginatively and contribute creatively to our world. Each year the Hop presents more than 300 live events and films by visiting artists as well as Dartmouth students and the Dartmouth community, and reaches more than 22,000 Upper Valley residents and students with outreach and arts education programs. After a celebratory 50th-anniversary season in 2012-13, the Hop enters its second half-century with renewed passion for mentoring young artists, supporting the development of new work, and providing a laboratory for participation and experimentation in the arts.