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Programme 6: 1st August 2006
The final part of Cherish the Ladies features musicians range Josephine Marsh and Kitty Hayes.
Over the course of the six part series presenter Aoife Nic Cormaic celebrated women in traditional music. The contributors ranged in age from the twenty something's to the seventy something's. Some are professional musicians and some play purely for pleasure and each person has her own unique experience of the music.
Programme 5: 25th July 2006
Laoise Kelly
Programme 4: 18th July 2006
This week features Josephine Keegan from Mullaghbawn who started playing the fiddle when she was very young, encouraged by listening to her father's big collection of 78's.
1n 1955, when she was twenty she won the Oireachtas Gold Medal for fiddle playing, but after that fiddle playing took a back seat and she concentrated on being a piano accompanist to other musicians, including Joe Burke and Seán Magure. She recorded her first of five solo albums in 1976 and earlier this year after a gap of twenty five years she recorded a new solo album. Josephine is known as a great musician, a collector and a composer of tunes, and last year won the TG4 composer of the year.
On Cherish the Ladies, she talks about playing at six hour long céilí dances, double tracking her own albums and making up tunes.
Programme 3: 11th July 2006
Liz and Yvonne Kane grew up in Letterfrack in Co. Galway and from a very young age they were surrounded by the music of great fiddle players. Their Grandfather Jimmy Mullen played the fiddle and he introduced them to recordings of Michael Coleman. Later on they met fiddle player and composer Paddy Fahey, and they have since recorded many of his tunes. Through all of this listening and learning they have developed a deep understanding of the music, which is evident in the two recordings which they have produced together.
On Cherish the Ladies, they talk about the influence and importance of these musicians as well as their own music and compositions.
Programme 2: 4th July 2006
Rosie Stewart is a singer from Fermanagh and although she says that singing is just a hobby for her, she is a regular visitor to festivals and concerts all over the country, especially the Joe Mooney Summer School in Drumshambo, Co. Leitrim. In 2004 her contribution to Irish singing was celebrated when she won the TG4 singer of the year.
On Cherish the Ladies she talks about learning songs from her father at home, the attraction of songs both old and new and the joys and worries of performing in public.
Programme 1: 27th June 2006 (Audio not available)
Chicago fiddle player Liz Carroll started her music career on a toy accordion, then moved on to miming fiddle moves on two sticks before graduating to the real thing. And since then, her fiddle has rarely been back in its case.
She won the All-Ireland senior fiddle title in 1975, and since then she has been a well known face on the Irish music scene, admired for her great playing as much as for her compositions.
In Cherish the Ladies she talks about learning Irish music in Chicago, balancing her musical career with her family life, and writing tunes.
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- NEXT: RTE Radio 1 Through the Night
When: Series finished
Presenter: Aoife Nic Cormaic
Producer: Aoife Nic Cormaic

