Martin Hayes (born 4 July 1962) is an Irish

fiddler A fiddle is a Bow (music), bowed String instrument, string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including European classical music, classical music. Although in many ...

from

County Clare County Clare ( ga, Contae an Chláir) is a county in Ireland, in the Southern Region and the province of Munster, bordered on the west by the Atlantic Ocean. Clare County Council is the local authority. The county had a population of 118,817 ...

. He is a member of the Irish-American

supergroup Supergroup or super group may refer to: * Supergroup (music), a music group formed by artists who are already notable or respected in their fields * Supergroup (physics), a generalization of groups, used in the study of supersymmetry * Supergroup ...

The Gloaming The Gloaming is a contemporary Irish/American music supergroup. Its members are fiddle player Martin Hayes, sean-nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird, hardanger fiddle player Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, and pianist Thomas Bartlett. Guitarist Dennis ...

Family and early life

Hayes was born into a musical family in Maghera, a townland in the parish of

Killanena Killanena () is a townland and formerly a district electoral division (DED) in County Clare, Ireland, in the Catholic parish of Killanena. Location Killanena lies beside Lough Graney, which covers about . At it is the largest lake in East Clare ...

in East Co. Clare,

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. His father, P.J. Hayes, was a noted fiddle player and his grandmother played the

concertina A concertina is a free-reed musical instrument, like the various accordions and the harmonica. It consists of expanding and contracting bellows, with buttons (or keys) usually on both ends, unlike accordion buttons, which are on the front. The ...

. His father and his uncle

Paddy Canny Paddy Canny (1919 – 28 June 2008) was an Irish fiddle player. In a career that spanned over six decades, Canny was instrumental in popularizing Irish traditional music, both in Ireland and internationally. He gained initial fame in the late ...

, also an influential fiddler, were among the founders of

the Tulla Céilí Band The Tulla Céilí Band is an Irish céilí band. History The band was founded in 1946 by Paddy Canny, fellow fiddler P.J. Hayes, pianist Teresa Tubridy, and accordion player Joe Cooley at Minogue's Bar in Tulla, County Clare, Ireland. They were ...

in 1946. P.J. Hayes led the band from 1952 until shortly before his death in 2001. Martin Hayes started playing the fiddle at the age of seven, taught by his father. At 13 he won his first of six All-Ireland Fiddle Competitions. He is one of only three fiddlers ever to be named All-Ireland Fiddle Champion in the senior division in two consecutive years (1981 and 1982). He joined the Tulla Céilí Band as a teenager and played in the band for seven years.

Career

1985 to 1995

Hayes moved to Chicago in 1985 and became active in the Irish traditional music scene there. He was a regular performer at weekly

jam session A jam session is a relatively informal musical event, process, or activity where musicians, typically instrumentalists, play improvised solos and vamp over tunes, drones, songs, and chord progressions. To "jam" is to improvise music without exte ...

s along with Chicago fiddler

Liz Carroll Liz Carroll (born September 19, 1956) is an American fiddler and composer. She is a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts' National Heritage Fellowship Award. Carroll and collaborator Irish guitarist John Doyle were nominated for a Gr ...

, who later described him as belonging to "that very narrow set of performers from any musical genre - not just Irish - whose every note is perfect". To make a living he worked in bars playing in a variety of genres including " rebel music, and songs and stage Irish humor in clubs, and all kinds of things". In the late 1980s he led a band called the "Celtic Aires". In 1989 he and the Chicago guitarist

Dennis Cahill Dennis Cahill was an Irish missionary priest working in western Maryland, USA, in the late 1700s, where he founded several Catholic parishes in the Potomac River valley area. History Cahill was involved in the founding of several Catholic paris ...

formed "Midnight Court", which combined traditional Irish and rock music. The band was active until 1992. In 1993 Hayes moved to

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, where he lived until 2005. His solo recording career began in 1993, with an eponymous debut album recorded with Randal Bays on guitar. On his second recording, ''Under the Moon'' (1995), he was accompanied by Bays on guitar and fiddle and guitarist

Steve Cooney Stephen Cooney is an Australian-Irish musician. Early life Cooney was born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, where he learned to play the didgeridoo, and from the age of seventeen he played in a number of rock bands. He is of Irish ancestry. ...

, as well as his father P.J. Hayes on fiddle and John Williams on concertina and accordion.

1996 to the present

In 1996 Hayes formed an acoustic duo with Dennis Cahill, developing an "unrushed, lyrical, highly expressive interpretation" of traditional Irish music. In 1999 a ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' reviewer described Hayes and Cahill's approach as "stripping old reels and jigs to their essence, leaving space between the notes for harmonics and whispered blue notes," resulting in "a Celtic complement to

Steve Reich Stephen Michael Reich ( ; born October 3, 1936) is an American composer known for his contribution to the development of minimal music in the mid to late 1960s. Reich's work is marked by its use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm, a ...

's quartets or

Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...

's ''

Sketches of Spain ''Sketches of Spain'' is an album by Miles Davis, recorded between November 1959 and March 1960 at the Columbia 30th Street Studio in New York City. An extended version of the second movement of Joaquín Rodrigo's ''Concierto de Aranjuez'' (1939) ...

.'' " Hayes and Cahill have released three recordings on the Green Linnet label: ''The Lonesome Touch'' (1997), ''Live in Seattle'' (1999), and ''Welcome Here Again'' (2008). Hayes and Cahill, along with singer

Iarla Ó Lionáird Iarla Ó Lionáird (born ) is an Irish singer and record producer. He sings in the traditional Sean-nós singing, sean-nós style. He was a member of the Afro Celt Sound System and is a member of the Irish-American supergroup (music), supergroup ...

, fiddler

Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh (born 28 August 1979) is a fiddler, born in Dublin, Ireland, who attended Trinity College Dublin, becoming a Scholar in Theoretical Physics (1999) and earning a First Class BA degree (as the top student of his class) in 20 ...

and pianist

Doveman Thomas Bartlett (born October 13, 1981), also known as Doveman, is an American pianist, producer, and singer. He has released four solo albums as Doveman, four albums as a member of The Gloaming, duo albums with the composer Nico Muhly and the ha ...

, are the members of

, an Irish-American

whose first album was released in 2014, winning the Meteor Choice Music Prize for Irish album of the year. Hayes performs and records with Peadar Ó Riada and Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh as the group "Tríur". Hayes is a member of the newly formed Martin Hayes Quartet, with Dennis Cahill, Liz Knowles, and

Doug Wieselman Douglas Joel Wieselman (born November 30, 1954) is an American composer and jazz reedist. He plays primarily clarinet and tenor saxophone, though he occasionally also plays soprano and baritone saxophone. Early life and education Wieselman was ...

. He has also appeared on a number of recordings with other musicians from east Clare including Christy McNamara's CD ''The House I was Reared In'', Mary MacNamara's CD ''Traditional Music from East Clare'' and the Compilation CD ''Reeling Through the Years'' celebrating 20 years of music from the Feakle Festival. Hayes plays regularly with The Tulla Céilí Band, of which his late father was a founding member. Since 2003 Hayes has been the musical director of the Masters of Tradition festival, held in

Bantry House Bantry House is a historic house with gardens in Bantry, County Cork, Ireland. Originally built in the early 18th century, it has been owned and occupied by the White family (formerly Earls of Bantry) since the mid-18th century. Opened to the p ...

(

Bantry Bantry () is a town in the civil parish of Kilmocomoge in the barony of Bantry on the southwest coast of County Cork, Ireland. It lies in West Cork at the head of Bantry Bay, a deep-water gulf extending for to the west. The Beara Peninsula is ...

County Cork County Cork ( ga, Contae Chorcaí) is the largest and the southernmost county of Ireland, named after the city of Cork, the state's second-largest city. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. Its largest market towns are ...

) every summer.

Honours

Hayes won the

BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards The BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards celebrate outstanding achievement during the previous year within the field of folk music, with the aim of raising the profile of folk and acoustic music. The awards have been given annually since 2000 by British ra ...

2000 award for Instrumentalist of the Year. In 2008 he was awarded the

TG4 TG4 ( ga, TG Ceathair, ) is an Irish free-to-air public service television network. The channel launched on 31 October 1996 and is available online and through its on demand service TG4 Player in Ireland and beyond. TG4 was formerly known ...

Gradam Ceoil (Traditional musician of the year award). In November 2019 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by NUI Galway.

Discography

With P. J. Hayes *''The Shores of Lough Graney'' (1990, Ice Nine Productions ICE 003 Cassette; re-released in 2011 on Quillan Records CD 001) Martin Hayes Quartet * ''The Blue Room'' (2017) Martin Hayes albums * ''Martin Hayes'' (1992, Green Linnet #1127) * ''Under the Moon'' (1995, Green Linnet #1155) Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill albums * ''The Lonesome Touch'' (1997, Green Linnet #1127) * ''Live in Seattle'' (1999, Green Linnet #1195) * ''Welcome Here Again'' (2008, Green Linnet #1233) As a member of the Tulla Céilí Band * ''A Celebration of 50 Years'' (1996, Green Linnet) * ''60th Anniversary Celebration'' (2007) With

*''The Gloaming'' (2014,

Brassland Records Brassland is an independent record label founded in 2001 by Alec Hanley Bemis, Aaron Dessner, and Bryce Dessner. History In Brassland's early years, Bemis worked as a freelance journalist for ''LA Weekly'' and ''The New York Times''. The Dessners ...

Real World Records Real World Records is a British record label specializing in world music. It was founded in 1989 by English musician Peter Gabriel and original members of WOMAD. A majority of the works released on Real World Records feature music recorded at ...

) *''2'' (2016) *''Live at the NCH'' (2018) *''3'' (2019) Other *''My Love is in America'' The Boston College Fiddle Festival (1991, Green Linnet Records #1110) *''Traditional Music from East Clare'' by Mary MacNamara (1994, Claddagh Records) *''John Williams'' by John Williams (1995, Green Linnet #1157) *''The Gathering'' Various Artists (1997, Real World UKCDRW62) *''Celtic Sessions'' by

William Coulter William Coulter is an American Celtic guitarist, performer, recording artist, and teacher. Since 1981 he has explored the world of traditional music as a soloist with ensembles including Isle of Skye, Orison, and the Coulter-Phillips Ensemble. ...

and Friends (1997, Gourd Music) *''In Concert'' by Kevin Burke (1999, Green Linnet #1196) *''Diary of a Fiddler'' by Darol Anger 1999 *''Poor Man's Troubles'' by

Bruce Molsky Bruce C. Molsky (born 1955, New York City) is an American fiddler, banjo player, guitarist, and singer. He primarily performs old-time music of the Appalachian region. Early years As a young man, Molsky first became interested in blues music, but ...

(2000, Rounder) *''I Could Read the Sky'' by

(2000, Real World Records) *''Murphy's Irish Pub'' with Laura MacKenzie, John Williams and Dean Magraw (2005, Compass Productions) *''The Wildlife Album'' (2005 Market Square Records Cat No. MSMCD134) *''Sligo Live 06'' (2006 Sligo Live Sampler, Promotional Use Only) *''The House I Was Reared In'' by Christy McNamara (2007, Durra Records) *''Reeling Through The Years'' (2007) compilation CD celebrating 20 years of the Feakle Festival *''Today, Tomorrow & on Sunday'' (2008) by Helen Hayes (CDHHG 001) *''The Humours of Tulla'' (2009) by The Tulla Comhaltas Archive Collection *''Triúr Sa Draighean'' (2010) with Peadar Ó Riada and Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh *''Triúr Arís'' (2012) with Peadar Ó Riada and Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh *''Highlander's Farewell'' (2011) with Alasdair Fraser, Natalie Haas, and Bruce Molsky *''The Butterfly'' (2019) with

Brooklyn Rider Brooklyn Rider is an American string quartet, based in Brooklyn, New York City, United States, whose members include violinists Johnny Gandelsman and Colin Jacobsen, violist Nicholas Cords and cellist Michael Nicolas. They are mainly known for ...

References

External links

* "Martin Hayes"at

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

*
Martin Hayes's websiteMartin Hayes and Dennis Cahill
at

Green Linnet Records Green Linnet Records was an American independent record label that specialized in Celtic music. Founded by Lisa Null and Patrick Sky as Innisfree Records in 1973, the label was initially based in Null's house in New Canaan, Connecticut. In 1975, t ...

"Masters of Tradition Festival"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hayes, Martin 1962 births 20th-century Irish people 21st-century Irish people Living people Irish fiddlers Musicians from County Clare Irish emigrants to the United States The Gloaming members 21st-century violinists Green Linnet Records artistsbr>Classical Beast
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