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Inisheer
Vocalist Sings the Way She Feels
CEOL
By Earle Hitchner
[Published in Earle Hitchner's "Ceol" column in the IRISH ECHO newspaper
on April 16, 2003,
in
New York City. Copyright © Earle Hitchner. All rights reserved.]
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Inisheer Vocalist Sings the Way She Feels
CEOL
By Earle Hitchner
[Published in Earle Hitchner's "Ceol" column in the IRISH ECHO newspaper
on April 16, 2003,
in New York City. Copyright © Earle Hitchner. All rights reserved.]
Every so often in the Irish tradition, a singing voice emerges that both demands
and commands attention. It was true of Dolores
Keane, Maighread and Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill, and Karan Casey, to
name but four, and it's equally true now of Lasairfhíona Ní
Chonaola (pronounced "Lah-sa-reena Nee Hun-ee-luh").
Her self-issued solo debut, "An Raicín Álainn" ("The
Beautiful Comb"),was launched last August not in Ireland but in Lorient,
Brittany, where she sang before 12,000 people at the Inter-Celtic Festival.
Quietly, even stealthily, the album crept into the
consciousness of traditional music followers in Ireland, where it began to receive
glowing reviews, get increased radio airplay,
and sell in numbers unusually high for a self-release.
Right upfront, I confessed to Ní Chonaola that of the more than 1,000
CDs I received for review last year, hers, sadly, was
not among them. "Ah, people are always saying to me, 'Where did you come
out of?'" Ní Chonaola volunteered, trying to console
me, "so I wouldn't worry about it. Besides, the album hasn't had its first
birthday yet. There's plenty of time."
She was speaking from Galway, close to the sea and within sight of her beloved
Aran Islands, though she refused to tell me where
exactly. "I'm between Galway and Inisheer, and wherever the world takes
me," she said with a laugh.
Ní Chonaola, who admitted to being in her late 20s, was not wholly sprung
anew like Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus." The first,
limited-issue recording on which she appeared was devoted to Aran Island singing
and is now out of print. Her next significant
album was French musician Hector Zazou's "Lights in the Dark" (Erato/Warner,
1998), on which she sings three songs in Irish and
also recites a poem.
"I was in Dublin at the time," Ní Chonaola recalled, "and
I got a phone call from a talent scout who was looking for Irish singers for
this project. I submitted a recording of my voice, and Hector liked it."
Irish singers Breda Mayock and former Anúna member Katie McMahon also
appear on the album, a contemporary, electronically
ambient setting for mostly Irish traditional sacred songs that
sold well. "Hector has a good ear for what works and what doesn't,"
Ní
Chonaola said. "We just recorded a new song together, 'Dragonfly,' that
will be out on an album in October. He did the music, and
I did the lyrics for the song. I like the idea that I can do both types of music,
modern and sean-nós."
STRONG STREAK OF ARTISTIC INDEPENDENCE
Born in Galway City, as so many children from the Aran Islands
are, and raised on Inisheer, the smallest of the three main Aran
Islands lying in the mouth of Galway Bay, Lasairfhíona Ní Chonaola
comes from a creative family. Her mother's side is full of
artists, while her father, Dara, is a novelist, biographer, short-story writer,
and poet; her brother Mac Dara is a singer and
photographer; brother Fionnán sings as well, and brother Diarmaid does
graphic design.
Dara, Mac Dara, and Diarmaid all applied their talents to her CD. Her father's
poem, "Show Me the Isles," became the basis
for the song "The Isle of Teiscinn," and he wrote the Irish lyrics
for the song "The Waves of Connemara." Mac Dara photographed
his sister for the album and sings the song "I Myself Go Fishing"
on it. Diarmaid handled the CD design and layout.
Ní Chonaola's upbringing on Inisheer was "very safe," she said.
"There are hardly any cars, and the air is so clean. You'd go to
Galway to shop." Her childhood was filled with songs and singing in the
sean-nós("old-style" and unaccompanied) tradition. "Inisheer
has a slight Munster twist to the Irish language," she said.
Her grandmother, Peige, who lived a long time in Boston, came from and returned
to Inishmaan. "She had a lot of songs that she passed
on to my father, who passed them on to me," Ní Chonaola said. "My
father sang a little bit, but he prefers to write. I'm the opposite.
I'd rather sing than speak."
Ní Chonaola attended a few classes in sean-nós singing on Inisheer
and also entered some competitions as a teenager. "When you're
that young,you're trying out your voice or whatever talent you have," she
said. "That was the time I really became aware of my voice."
No one vocalist, Ní Chonaola insists, shaped her music. "I think
it's important for singers to develop their own styles," she said. "I
don't
want too much influence because I want my own personality to come through in
my voice."
That is especially true of the approach she took to her solo debut, spare without
being spartan. "The simple arrangements were good
for my voice, and I felt the treatment I gave the songs were what they wanted
and needed," she explained. "Music is another language,
and when I'm singing, I feel I'm actually speaking to someone by using a different
part of my brain. I just sing the way I feel."
In the years following boarding school in Galway and a degree in Celtic Studies
from Dublin's Trinity College, Ní Chonaola honed in
on her vocal talent, though she still teaches school from time to time to make
ends meet. She's performed at the Montreux Jazz
Festival in Switzerland during a "Lights in the Dark" tour, and she's
appeared on several Irish TV and radio programs. There was
even a TV documentary on her, "Léargas," last November on RTÉ.
"The producer heard my album," she said modestly.
A purity of expression is perhaps the distinguishing attribute of "An Raicín
Álainn." There's no sense of strain or compromise in
her closely miked
vocals. "Maybe it's an independent streak I have, but I go by my intuition
and instinct," she said. "I felt this is what I'm supposed
to do and the way I'm supposed to do it."
Ní Chonaola asked Máire Breatnach, a fiddler, violist, and pianist
she first met at a concert in Belfast, to produce the CD. "In
one way, I wanted a woman producer because a lot of the songs have a feminine
quality," she said. "I also liked Máire's energy
and music." Besides Breatnach, whistle player Mary Bergin, guitarist Pat
Hargan, harper Paul Dooley, bodhrán player Johnny
McDonagh, and piano accordionist Alex Barcelona perform on the album, which
was recorded in Cuan Studios in Spiddal,
Galway, except for one track. "'Song of the Gale' was done in Paris with
Alex, who's a French player,"
Ní Chonaola said. "He composed the melody, and I wrote the lyrics."
TRADITIONAL AND EXPERIMENTAL
The majority of songs on "An Raicín Álainn"
are traditional, and some are quite familiar, such as "The Twisting of
the Rope."
The vocal group Skara Brae recorded it back in the early 1970s, and it became
very popular in the 1960s after Joe Heaney
(1919-1984), the great sean-nós singer from Carna, recorded it. "I
think Heaney's character came through all his songs," Ní
Chonaola said in admiration. "He made them very alive."
She has a similar ability to transform a song and make its impact seem fresh
and new. Her style is intimate, drawing listeners in,
and when she drops into a low whisper in a low register, as she does near the
end of"Coincidence," the effect can be subtly
startling. That track, more than three minutes of lilting to McDonagh's bodhrán
playing, is perhaps the most experimental on the
CD. "It's not normal lilting," Ní Chonaola conceded. "Like
other parts of the album, it's a bit abstract. I like to think outside the
box." That she does, sustaining or bending notes at times, inserting pauses
at others, all the while maintaining a breathy discipline
in this original slice of mouth music without words. Her investment of feeling
in each album track is almost palpable. Nowhere is
this more obvious than in "Inisheer on Inisheer," in which she adapts
a poem by Ethna Carberry (1866-1911) to a gorgeous
melody from Thomas Walsh, and "Fair Úna," a tragic Connacht
love song written by Tomás Mac Coisdealbhaigh that she sings
sean-nós. "I find when I sing 'Fair Úna,' I need a break
afterward," she said. "It's a very strong song. "The strength
of the sean-nós
tradition continues to inspire and excite Ní Chonaola. "Sean-nós
songs are my training, my backbone, and have huge energy," she
said. "In a way, they're like a prayer. They're condensed emotion.You can
almost imagine the persons who composed these songs
from the energy they put into them. You sing some sad songs and feel relieved
afterward. I know I always feel better after I sing."
Ní Chonaola sees a similarity between the sean-nós singers and
songs on the Aran Islands and the world-famous, cream-colored,
distinctively patterned sweaters made there, the so-called Aran ganseys. "Each
woman who knits has her own style of making a
sweater, a special stitch, so you could tell who made what sweater," she
said. "My grandmother had a special stitch. I feel some
of the songs I sing are like the knitting, and I supply my own special stitch
to them."
At the end of this month, Ní Chonaola will be displaying her special
vocal stitch at the Festival of the Poets in Scotland, and in
June she's
scheduled to perform at Galway City's Town Hall. "I'd love to go to America
and sing," she added. With further U.S. radio and
press exposure for her spellbinding solo CD, an invitation should not be far
behind.
TO GET THE ALBUM
Visit www.aransinger.com for further information about Lasairfhíona Ní
Chonaola's "An Raicín Álainn" (LNC 001).
It can also be acquired from Ossian USA, 118 Beck Rd., Loudon, NH 03307 USA,
603-783-4383,www.ossianusa.com,
info@ossianusa.com.
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