About the musicians

David Sheridan - Biography

Ciarán Somers – Biography

Nicolas Quemener - Biography

David Sheridan was born in Tubber, Co. Offaly, a small village that nestles close to the Westmeath border. He began playing the tin whistle at the local primary school where Mrs. Dunican started the children in her class playing music. A children’s marching band was initiated soon afterwards and he remembers many happy days with that band practising in the school grounds and performing at field days and parades all over Offaly and Westmeath. Willie Reynolds – master piper and accordionist- would come to Tubber to teach the budding musicians and instilled a love of Irish music in the young David.

While still in primary school, David’s father Andy produced a fiddle for him to try. He was taken to lessons in the old Moate Community centre under the tutelage of Father Lane, curate in Mount Temple. This started a love for the fiddle which exists to this day.

There followed an event which was to cement this relationship with fiddle playing as Offalyman, Dan Cleary started teaching fiddle in those same rooms as part of Moate CCE music classes. Dan was leader of the Ballinamere Ceili Band which recorded and played extensively all over Ireland. A fiddle teacher with endless patience, Dan also won three All-Ireland titles on the pipes in his younger days. He had an amazing repertoire of tunes and his enthusiasm for new and different tunes still drives David today. Dan also took charge of an under-11 ceili band in Tubber where many of the children from the marching band continued their musical development. That band went on to win six Leinster titles in successive age-groups at Fleadhanna. The band included three of David’s sisters, Anne, Rosemary and Pamela on fiddles. David also went on to win All-Ireland titles with two members of that band- Scor-na nOg with Thomas Murphy in 1979 and Scor in 1994 with Camillus Hiney.

Thanks to his father, who with much patience drove him to sessions in various far-flung places throughout the midlands, David developed a passion for these musical gatherings and still thrives on the buzz and excitement of the session. Frank Bracken, leader for many years of the Comhaltas group in Moate, also took an interest in the musical growth of David, and for many of his teenage years included him in shows which were performed throughout the whole of Ireland and indeed, abroad.

In 1986, David moved to Carlow, where he now resides. He is a fixture on the local traditional music scene, playing in sessions and performing on stage. He has been part of Carlow-based groups which represented Ireland in China and Japan and has played music in countless other countries in the last 20 years or so. He met many great musicians here in Carlow and Kilkenny and with these heroes has helped to put Carlow music on the map. He spends a lot of his time teaching Carlow youngsters to play and recently helped to form RiRa, a teenage traditional performing group. He, along with wife Michelle run a successful folk club in Carlow bringing the best musicians and singers to the town.

Ciarán Somers is from Muine Bheag, County Carlow in the south east of Ireland.

He began playing the tin whistle at the age of ten under the guidance of Micky Byrne and the local Comhaltas Ceoltoirí Éireann branch. This was the beginning of a life long friendship between two until Mick's passing in April 2008. Micky, who also gave Ciaran his first tuition on the Uilleann pipes, was a remarkable man; Musician, poet, song writer, wood turner ,pipe maker, historian, painter and well known humorist. At the request of his family, Ciaran played Micky’s favourite slow air ‘An Beinsín Luachra’ at his graveside.

Moving on to the flute, he took lessons from John Browne of Carlow. John is responsible for teaching scores of flute players in the area but is more associated with the tin whistle today. John’s technique and expressive slow air playing is of the highest standard yet his tendency to shy away from the spotlight has meant that he is recognised locally rather than Nationally as a true great of that instrument.

Having achieved his musical independence, Ciarán served an apprenticeship to a wide range of teachers on the summer school music circuit in his teenage years. From early on, Ciarán developed a love for the north Connacht style of breathy, rhythmic fluteplaying typified in the playing of Seamus Tansey and Peter Horan from County Sligo and in the recordings of John McKenna, Co. Leitrim, from the 1920s. While rhythm and power are always to the fore in Ciaran’s playing, he still aspires to and credits the velvet tone and effortless control of Matt Molloy of Ballaghadereen, Co. Roscommon, as the single greatest influence on his playing.

Ciarán holds BA in music from the Waterford institute of technology where he majored in performance in his final year. He still has many contacts in Co. Waterford and has toured and played extensively with piper David Power from Dungarvan who was also attending the college at this time. He completed a Masters degree in music technology from the Dublin institute of technology and shortly after took up a position with Na Píobairí Uilleann, the national organisation of Uilleann pipers. This led to Ciarán rekindling his interest in playing the pipes, an interest that has endured. He currently works as a second level teacher of music in County Carlow.

He is an experienced instrumental teacher and is on the teaching staff of the annual Willie Clancy Summer School in Miltown Malbay County Clare and is in regular demand as an instructor in the United States and Europe. Aside from frequent trips to Brittany France, he has been involved in a number of touring ensembles. He led the Irish delegation to the International festival of World cultures at the Tokyo National Theatre in 2004 with the ‘Geantraí Players’ and again as guests of the Chinese embassy in Beijing for St. Patrick’s day celebrations in 2008. He can be heard playing on a number of albums including Wooden Flute Obsession, a compilation CD of Irish Traditional Music played on the wooden flute.

Nicolas Quemener is regarded as one of the finest guitarists on the European folk circuit and he is a very fine flute player. He lives in the village of Guemene-Sur-Scorff in Brittany France where he also has a state of the art recording studio and is well renowned for his engineering skills. He comes from a very musical family. His formal training began at the Conservatory of Music at Angers where he studied percussion.

His introduction to Irish Traditional music began in 1988 when he visited Galway. He intended to stay just a week but spent nearly three years in the town. His first musical performances were on Shop Street, in the central shopping area of town where he did some busking. His talents were soon noticed and he was invited by Johnny

’ Ringo’ Mc Donagh to join the band ‘Arcady’ in 1990. Nicolas toured Europe and America with the band for the following six years. On his return to Brittany, Nicolas played and recorded with groups; Orion, Skeduz, Kornog and Hudel who collectively feature a who’s who of Breton music. He regularly plays in a duet with accordionist Audrey le Jossec and they produced a live DVD recording from his home town in 2006. Most recently, Nicolas has been busy recording and performing with the band ‘Pennou Skoulm’ who were one of the headline acts at the ‘Festival Interceltique’ in Lorient this year.