Mark and Pat wow TradFest audience
GOREY musicians Mark Redmond and Pat Fitzpatrick received a standing ovation after their amazing sold out performance in Dublin City Hall as part of the Temple Bar Tradfest.
Lord Mayor of Dublin Niall Ring who was in attendance, went on stage after the performance to congratulate them on a wonderful concert.
RTÉ’s Kieran Hanrahan, artistic director of TradFest, who was instrumental in selecting Mark and Pat to perform at Tradfest was also full of praise for the duo.
Mr Hanrahan had been very impressed by their collaboration having heard them on RTÉ Radio One a year previously.
As a duet, Mark and Pat mixed the unique sound of the uilleann pipes with clarinet – a combination yet to be recorded commercially.
Throughout the concert they played numerous wind instruments, offering great variety of sound and versatility.
The repertoire has a strong local flavour with many of the melodies having Wexford titles that Redmond had sourced from old manuscripts in recent years.
He said that some of the tunes may not have been heard for decades. The set list for the Tradfest concert included a reel called ‘The Pretty Girls of Gorey’ (from the Cannon Goodman collection of the mid nineteenth century), ‘Redmond’s Frolics’ (from the O’Neill collection of the early Twentieth Century) ‘The Wexford Lasses’ (from the Rowsome collection) and ‘Trip the Hills to Gorey’ a reel taken from a manuscript of local fiddler Tomás Keegan.
Tradfest is Ireland’s largest festival of traditional music and also features artists from the world of folk music.
It is marketed as a boutique Winter festival – closing the door on the darkest season and ushering in the light and energy of Spring.
Mark said that energy was certainly felt by the large audience.