The Irish Sea Sessions

The Irish Sea Sessions 2012 will be at Belfast Waterfront Hall on Saturday 20th October. Tickets go on sale on Monday 24th April. All seats are £18.50

Thanks to support from Liverpool Primary Care Trust, students at North Liverpool Academy have been working with Ian Prowse and Liverpool Philharmonic’s learning department including composer Ian Stephens, writing their own songs inspired by their family history and heritage, and on themes of migration and travel. On Friday 24th February they were joined by Irish sea Sessions musicians Gino Lupari and Méabh O Hare to give a concert to the whole academy. Report and pictures on the North Liverpool Academy website here

Later that night, Méabh and Gino joined up with guitarist John Chandler, and opened the show at St George’s Hall Concert Room, a sold out event with Michael McGoldrick, John McCusker and John Doyle, reviewed by lovely Liverpool Confidential here.

The 2012 Irish Sea Sessions concert at Liverpool Philharmonic will take place on Friday 19th October. Tickets are now on sale – you can buy online here.

The aftershow will take place at a club venue very close by and will include special guest artists: a limited number of inclusive tickets are on sale. VIP tickets, whcih include box seats at Liverpool Philharmonic, include access to the aftershow. With other ticket purchases you can add the aftershow for £5 at the time of purchase, or £10 later on or on the door.

The festival hotel is the Hope Street Hotel.

We hope to make further announcements of concerts across the Irish Sea in early spring.

We are very grateful to Sean McGee and his excellent publication R2 for this review by Colin Hall of the Liverpool event in 2011, (and for giving superb coverage to good music from Liverpool and Ireland in the magazine at all times!)

Alan sings a stunning version of this 200+ year old broadside ballad, that links Cheshire and Belfast’s Black Mountain, and includes a new verse especially for Irish Sea Sessions 2011. Followed by a set of tunes: The Mist Covered Mountain, Dara Murphy’s, and Munster Buttermilk.

Watch this at 720 dpi with the volume up …