Tradition Now: Erland Cooper

6:00pm – Ævestaden - The Studio
​​​​​​​7:30pm - Erland Cooper - MS
9:00pm - Myles O’Reilly and Rónán Ó Snodaigh - KBBR
10:00pm - This is How We Fly – The Studio
John Field Room Sessions  - musicians & timings TBC

“Nature’ s songwriter” – The Guardian

Erland Cooper is a Scottish composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist originally from Stromness, Orkney. As a solo artist, he has released three acclaimed studio albums, with four additional companion albums and multiple EP's, including a trilogy of work inspired by his childhood home, as well as themes of nature, people, place and time. His work combines field recordings with traditional orchestration and contemporary electronic elements. Through music, words and cinematography he explores landscape, memory and identity. 

This is How We Fly are a group that fuse traditional Irish music, Swedish folk, jazz, and percussive dance into something utterly unique. This second album Foreign Fields follows their critically acclaimed eponymous debut from 2013. The intervening years have seen the group, comprised of Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh (fiddles), Seán Mac Erlaine (woodwinds, electronics), Nic Gareiss (percussive dance), and Petter Berndalen (drums), perform and tour throughout Europe and USA. Their live performances range from highly nuanced original material drawing on each of the musicians' considerable craft to steady building grooves that nod to techno and contemporary electronica.

Musicians Rónán Ó Snodaigh and Myles O'Reilly’s second album The Beautiful Road, a soulful blend of folk, traditional, and ambient crossover follows the success of their debut album Tá Go Maith, which was warmly received by Irish audiences after its release in May 2020. Rónán and Myles have been showcasing their unique sound live to an ever-growing fan-base. In The Beautiful Road the pair set out to create a soothing listening experience by focusing on higher frequencies, inspired by the calming effects of nature, while also seeking to counter the increased levels of intrusive ambient ‘white noise’ caused by traffic, machinery, and other unpredictable sounds arising from the world’s post pandemic return to frenzied norms.  

Swedish-Norwegian trio Ævestaden blend traditional and the modern combined in a seamless way. Ævestaden is long psalms, modern lyrics, pop songs and a sound that doesn’t fear the clear, the dirty, the electronic nor the traditional. Their varying instrument combinations, with lyres, fiddle, kantele, vocals, mouth harp and electronics, open up a unique soundscape when timeless harmonies, and layers of simple motifs, create an open and atmospheric world.

Presented by NCH in partnership with the Arts Council