Taoiseach pays tribute to Chieftain Derek Bell

The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, has paid tribute to Derek Bell, the Chieftains musician who died suddenly in the United States while recovering from minor surgery.

Belfast-born Mr Bell, who was 67, was a concert pianist and harper. This evening, Mr Ahern said Mr Bell was a gifted musician who had helped the Chieftains to make traditional Irish music accessible to an international audience.

His fellow band-members said that his passing had left a silence that could never be filled and that anyone who had had the honour of meeting him would know that the world would be a much less interesting place without him.

As a classically trained musician, Derek had appeared with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the symphony orchestras of Pittsburgh, Moscow, London and Budapest.From 1965 until 1976, when he joined the Chieftains, he was solo harpist with the BBC Northern Ireland orchestra, having moved from the City of Belfast Orchestra, where he was solo english horn.

At one stage he was principle oboe, horn and piano player for the American Wind Symphony Orchestra. He was also a composer, with symphonies, chamber music and piano pieces to his credit.

Besides recording with The Chieftains, Derek Bell recorded 18 solo albums, ten on harp and two on piano. He had a reputation, in common with the other Chieftains members, for unearthing rarely heard music.

For 31 years and as many albums, The Chieftains have been the most influential of the Irish folk musicians, credited with doing more to spread appreciation of traditional Irish music than any other group in Ireland's history.