Musician | Composer | Innovator
Gráinne's music draws the listener in across fiddle & bow, across sea, sky, time and topography, the emotional landscapes and literature of the past lit by new spatial possibilities in traditional music.
Her musical journey is as diverse as her educational background - an MSc Honours Maths Graduate with an Irish childhood steeped in folk music.
Coming from a musical household in Loughduff, Co. Cavan, Gráinne’s Dad was her first fiddle music teacher. She then went on to perform regularly at traditional music festivals throughout Ireland and rapidly built from that a broad repertoire of tunes. Her fiddle playing style emanates from the musical lyricism of counties Cavan, Leitrim and Clare, and has more recently evolved to incorporate newfound Scottish influences.
Gráinne’s style of music is tethered by tradition while spanning the sky-wide scope of a composer’s imagination.
From the Shores of Lough Sheelin to the Banks of the Clyde
Living in the heart of Glasgow’s trad music scene, Gráinne is a vital part of that great city’s musical pulse, relishing the creative milieu of community, where young players are writing new music, swapping tunes, drawing from the rich cultural lode of shared regional styles and identity. Creative collaborations include; The Routes Quartet, a folk string quartet ensemble, who were nominated 'Folk Band of the Year' in MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards 2017, Top Floor Taivers, a Scots and contemporary song band, and nominee in MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards 2016, and LAS; Scottish and Irish tunes, step-dance and Gaelic song.
Gráinne has been composing music for over ten years and has had her tunes published on several albums, including renowned Perthshire fiddler Patsy Reid’s, ‘A Glint o’ Scottish Fiddle’. Patsy admires the young Irish musician’s commitment to “seeing her musical visions realised” and describes Gráinne as “a beautiful fiddle player and versatile musician with a unique sound and refreshing outlook, producing original and imaginative music”. Gráinne’s compositions also feature on her albums with pianist/flautist Tina Jordan Rees, Top Floor Taivers and The Routes Quartet.
Living in the heart of Glasgow’s trad music scene, Gráinne is a vital part of that great city’s musical pulse, relishing the creative milieu of community, where young players are writing new music, swapping tunes, drawing from the rich cultural lode of shared regional styles and identity. Creative collaborations include; The Routes Quartet, a folk string quartet ensemble, who were nominated 'Folk Band of the Year' in MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards 2017, Top Floor Taivers, a Scots and contemporary song band, and nominee in MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards 2016, and LAS; Scottish and Irish tunes, step-dance and Gaelic song.
Gráinne has been composing music for over ten years and has had her tunes published on several albums, including renowned Perthshire fiddler Patsy Reid’s, ‘A Glint o’ Scottish Fiddle’. Patsy admires the young Irish musician’s commitment to “seeing her musical visions realised” and describes Gráinne as “a beautiful fiddle player and versatile musician with a unique sound and refreshing outlook, producing original and imaginative music”. Gráinne’s compositions also feature on her albums with pianist/flautist Tina Jordan Rees, Top Floor Taivers and The Routes Quartet.
Creating Connections across Music, Song, Story, and the Spoken Word
Gráinne’s debut solo album, 'The Road Across the Hills', was inspired by the 1914 novel 'Children of the Dead End', which is considered canonical in classic Irish and Scottish literature. Thanks to her Dad, Gráinne and her siblings were early advocates for the writings of Donegal born Patrick MacGill. All of this came alive again for her in Glasgow, culminating in her first album. Gráinne recognised MacGill as a significant literary witness to a very particular and unexplored story of poverty among the Irish and the Scottish at the time, depicting the unthinkable hardships endured by the so-called lower classes, the navvies, the potato pickers, the down-trodden. She composed all the music herself, much of it within the traditional idiom, and the album is enriched by the writer’s poetry, recited by Donegal native and fiddler, Jack Houston.
“I wanted it to be real – I was compelled to compose music that both honoured and reflected the hard lives - but I also felt my music should mirror how positivity is a huge uplifting part of MacGills work.” Gráinne describes her creative process in composing tunes during an interview for Irish Music Magazine: “I wrote each track in response to pivotal moments in the novel, MacGill’s great narrative arc from his Donegal childhood to the life of the navvy and beyond. I liked linking track titles to lyrical place names and MacGill’s rich characters - Moleskin Joe, The Fields of Renfrewshire, Norah Ryan, The Flower of Danaveen. Take The Navvy of Kinlochleven as an example - a gritty working tune to reflect the hardship and the slog - but also the camaraderie between the characters and so it’s a bright lively tune with a bit of an edge!"
Gráinne toured Ireland and Scotland to promote 'The Road Across the Hills' in the Spring of 2019 – where the extremely positive audience feedback lent great artistic bounce to the concerts. Her music has featured on RTE Raidio na Gaeltachta, BBC NI and BBC Radio Scotland, as well on BBC Alba's Seirm television series which aired in May 2019. In January 2019, Gráinne showcased this music to great acclaim at Glasgow's prestigious Celtic Connections Festival, as part of the New Voices commission series with a 9-piece ensemble, which included a string trio as well as guitar, accordion, percussion and spoken word.
Gráinne’s second solo album 'Newcomer', produced by award winning musician and composer Mike Vass, is currently under production with guest musicians; Innes White (guitar), Andrew Waite (accordion), Michael Biggins (piano), Steve Forman (percussion), Christine MacGinley (French horn), Seonaid Aitken (violin), Sarah Leonard (viola), Su-a Lee (cello), Tina Jordan Rees (flute) and Jack Houston (spoken word). Newcomer will focus on the story of Norah Ryan, a literary heroine explored in MacGill’s novel The Rat Pit – Norah was a woman of strength and beauty, who nevertheless was vulnerable to poverty, sexual exploitation, and great emotional loss.
'Newcomer' will be one to watch, a promising CD, considering how Gráinne’s first album created such a lively buzz of interest.
Gráinne’s debut solo album, 'The Road Across the Hills', was inspired by the 1914 novel 'Children of the Dead End', which is considered canonical in classic Irish and Scottish literature. Thanks to her Dad, Gráinne and her siblings were early advocates for the writings of Donegal born Patrick MacGill. All of this came alive again for her in Glasgow, culminating in her first album. Gráinne recognised MacGill as a significant literary witness to a very particular and unexplored story of poverty among the Irish and the Scottish at the time, depicting the unthinkable hardships endured by the so-called lower classes, the navvies, the potato pickers, the down-trodden. She composed all the music herself, much of it within the traditional idiom, and the album is enriched by the writer’s poetry, recited by Donegal native and fiddler, Jack Houston.
“I wanted it to be real – I was compelled to compose music that both honoured and reflected the hard lives - but I also felt my music should mirror how positivity is a huge uplifting part of MacGills work.” Gráinne describes her creative process in composing tunes during an interview for Irish Music Magazine: “I wrote each track in response to pivotal moments in the novel, MacGill’s great narrative arc from his Donegal childhood to the life of the navvy and beyond. I liked linking track titles to lyrical place names and MacGill’s rich characters - Moleskin Joe, The Fields of Renfrewshire, Norah Ryan, The Flower of Danaveen. Take The Navvy of Kinlochleven as an example - a gritty working tune to reflect the hardship and the slog - but also the camaraderie between the characters and so it’s a bright lively tune with a bit of an edge!"
Gráinne toured Ireland and Scotland to promote 'The Road Across the Hills' in the Spring of 2019 – where the extremely positive audience feedback lent great artistic bounce to the concerts. Her music has featured on RTE Raidio na Gaeltachta, BBC NI and BBC Radio Scotland, as well on BBC Alba's Seirm television series which aired in May 2019. In January 2019, Gráinne showcased this music to great acclaim at Glasgow's prestigious Celtic Connections Festival, as part of the New Voices commission series with a 9-piece ensemble, which included a string trio as well as guitar, accordion, percussion and spoken word.
Gráinne’s second solo album 'Newcomer', produced by award winning musician and composer Mike Vass, is currently under production with guest musicians; Innes White (guitar), Andrew Waite (accordion), Michael Biggins (piano), Steve Forman (percussion), Christine MacGinley (French horn), Seonaid Aitken (violin), Sarah Leonard (viola), Su-a Lee (cello), Tina Jordan Rees (flute) and Jack Houston (spoken word). Newcomer will focus on the story of Norah Ryan, a literary heroine explored in MacGill’s novel The Rat Pit – Norah was a woman of strength and beauty, who nevertheless was vulnerable to poverty, sexual exploitation, and great emotional loss.
'Newcomer' will be one to watch, a promising CD, considering how Gráinne’s first album created such a lively buzz of interest.
Music Beyond Borders
And lest she should be accused of resting on her laurels, there is now also the not-so-small matter of a parallel stage-project in theatre. 'The Road Across the Hills' takes on a fascinatingly more literal meaning now because this music is due to blossom as a vital core part of a new musical theatre production! With an amazing synchronicity, her album captured the attention of artistic theatre director & film-maker Robert Rae who had read 'Children of the Dead End' and was deeply committed to a stage play of his work - in his own words: “MacGill opens each chapter with a poem or the verse of a song, and the diegetic music leaps out.”
The theatre director sensed the novel would adapt well to the stage, especially in these challenging times for emigrants and refugees. Needing a musical collaborator, Robert’s enquiries led him with uncanny speed to Gráinne’s solo album: “On listening to 'The Road Across the Hills' I was impressed with the quality and integrity of Gráinne’s music. We met, and her open, direct and easy nature and personal commitment to the book offered a solid base for collaboration.”
The stage play will be based on both of MacGill’s novels, 'Children of the Dead End' & 'The Rat Pit' – which of course also reflect Gráinne's own concept albums, 'The Road Across the Hills' and the forthcoming 'Newcomer', respectively. Gráinne is currently hard at work towards this exciting stage endeavour – which will hopefully tour internationally – composing new music, song-writing, and adapting her music to best illuminate the narrative.
There’s a strong sense that this play will generate tremendous interest, going by the appreciative reviewer’s response to her music: “I’m struck by how Gráinne’s honourable approach to her own art feels linked to Patrick MacGill’s integrity. His work is autobiographical, and spliced with pain and poverty, and yet both his prose and his path are lit and uplifted to an astonishing level by MacGill’s rich human connections. In Gráinne’s music, that empathetic quality shimmers right through the compositional bow of the narrative arc.” - Deirdre Cronin, Irish Music Magazine
My ways are cast with many men… the down and outers of the gaol, the tavern and the gambling dens… but under heaven’s gentian skies, what strains of sweetness fill the dells. - Patrick MacGill (1889-1963)
And lest she should be accused of resting on her laurels, there is now also the not-so-small matter of a parallel stage-project in theatre. 'The Road Across the Hills' takes on a fascinatingly more literal meaning now because this music is due to blossom as a vital core part of a new musical theatre production! With an amazing synchronicity, her album captured the attention of artistic theatre director & film-maker Robert Rae who had read 'Children of the Dead End' and was deeply committed to a stage play of his work - in his own words: “MacGill opens each chapter with a poem or the verse of a song, and the diegetic music leaps out.”
The theatre director sensed the novel would adapt well to the stage, especially in these challenging times for emigrants and refugees. Needing a musical collaborator, Robert’s enquiries led him with uncanny speed to Gráinne’s solo album: “On listening to 'The Road Across the Hills' I was impressed with the quality and integrity of Gráinne’s music. We met, and her open, direct and easy nature and personal commitment to the book offered a solid base for collaboration.”
The stage play will be based on both of MacGill’s novels, 'Children of the Dead End' & 'The Rat Pit' – which of course also reflect Gráinne's own concept albums, 'The Road Across the Hills' and the forthcoming 'Newcomer', respectively. Gráinne is currently hard at work towards this exciting stage endeavour – which will hopefully tour internationally – composing new music, song-writing, and adapting her music to best illuminate the narrative.
There’s a strong sense that this play will generate tremendous interest, going by the appreciative reviewer’s response to her music: “I’m struck by how Gráinne’s honourable approach to her own art feels linked to Patrick MacGill’s integrity. His work is autobiographical, and spliced with pain and poverty, and yet both his prose and his path are lit and uplifted to an astonishing level by MacGill’s rich human connections. In Gráinne’s music, that empathetic quality shimmers right through the compositional bow of the narrative arc.” - Deirdre Cronin, Irish Music Magazine
My ways are cast with many men… the down and outers of the gaol, the tavern and the gambling dens… but under heaven’s gentian skies, what strains of sweetness fill the dells. - Patrick MacGill (1889-1963)