Traditional Singers Club
Fintan Vallely
CONTACT:
The Traditional Singers Club
c/o Brian Miller
653 Galtier Street Apt. #101
Saint Paul, MN 55103
Phone: 651-245-3719
Saint Paul, MN (September 27,
2006) – The Traditional Singers Club, in conjunction with The
Center for Irish Music and through a grant from Irish Fair Minnesota,
is bringing the highly regarded singer, composer, flute player and scholar
Fintan Vallely to the Twin Cities in late October. The Singers
Club will present an evening concert of traditional Irish song featuring
Vallely on Sunday, October 29th in the Saint Paul Conservatory
of Music recital hall at 7:30 PM. A native of County Armagh, Vallely
is a prolific composer of comic and topical songs in the Irish traditional
style. Also performing will be Singers Club resident singers Charlie
Heymann, Erin Hart, Sherry Minnick and others. Admission is $10
at the door.
In addition to the concert
on the 29th, Vallely and the Traditional Singers Club will
present a workshop on comic song and song writing in the traditional
style on Monday, October 30th. The workshop starts
at 7:30 and will be held at a private residence in South Minneapolis.
For directions e-mail singersclub@gmail.com or call Brian Miller at 651-245-3719.
The cost for the Singers Club workshop is $10.
As Fintan is also an excellent
traditional flute player, the Center for Irish Music has arranged a
flute/whistle master class with him from 6:30-8:30 at the St. Paul Conservatory
of Music on Wednesday, November 1st. The fee for the
master class is $30.
The St. Paul Conservatory of
Music is located at the corner of Cedar and Exchange Street in downtown
St. Paul. For more information call Brian Miller at 651-245-3719
or email singersclub@gmail.com or visit www.singclub.org
Read on for a full biography of Fintan Vallely:
Fintan Vallely comes from North County Armagh close to the town of Moy on the Tyrone border. Growing up on 'the dark Loanen' - a mile-long narrow lane where the thorn hedges once met at the top - in an environment of apples and turnips and in an atmosphere of céilí bands, he took up the tin whistle at the beginning of the 1960s for no particular reason. He absorbed a lot from the radio and the odd record and in collusion with cousins Brian and Dara (the latter of Armagh Rhymers fame) formed the Armagh Piper's Club. He took up the flute in 1965 and went on to the uilleann pipes, in all this period playing endlessly mostly at sessions in Counties Armagh and Tyrone.
He has a distinctive style in which he ornaments by subtle rolling and undercutting, pounding out the rhythm using diaphragm, and articulating notes with a tongued 'ch' and at the back of the throat. His repertoire takes in the spectrum of traditional tunes - hornpipes. marches, jigs, reels, slides, polkas and Carolan tunes, with a penchant for the slow air, favouring a Sligo style to the playing.
He has performed all over Britain, in Europe, the US, Australia and has even brought badly needed Irish music to Indonesia. Always a dabbler with verse in the 1980s, the state of the nation - and in particular the beliefs, and disbeliefs, of its various flocks - drove Fintan into the arena of satirical song writing wherein he manages to flog an all-inclusive selection of sacred and secular cows. Christy Moore sang and recorded one of his more popular songs (The Man From RTÉ) and included it in his 2000 biography.
Fintan Vallely has been for many years a regular teacher at Ireland's unofficial university of Traditional music - the Willie Clancy Summer School in Miltown Malbay, Co. Clare, and hosts Flute workshops. In 1986 he produced the first tutor for the wooden Concert Flute (Timber - the Flute Tutor) this re-issued in a new edition in autumn 2001 as The Irish Flute Tutor. His 1979 Shanachie LP is re-issued on CD as The Dark Loanen (WHN 003), and the 1992, The Starry Lane to Monaghan (with guitarist Mark Simos) is also on CD (WHN 004). Big Guns and Hairy Drums is an album of satirical song with Tim Lyons.
In 2001 he was a flute tutor at the week-long Folkworks summer school held at Durham University, and will host workshops in flute at Folkworks' workshop weekend October 26-28, 2001.
He also writes on Traditional music,
with a weekly column in The Sunday Tribune.
His books include The Blooming Meadows
(with Charlie Piggott and photographer Nutan), the edited, A-Z Companion to Irish Traditional Music (1999), and The Guide to Irish Traditional Music (2001).
Keep on singing!
