Caoimhin Vallely

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I was born in Armagh into a family steeped in traditional Irish music. My parents and uncles have been playing and teaching music in Armagh since the late sixties. I started playing music at the age of 7 when I began learning tin whistle at the Armagh Pipers Club. I progressed on to the fiddle fairly quickly taking lessons from my mother Eithne as well as attending classes at various summer schools and festivals around the country.---------------------------------------Also at the same time I began going to classical piano lessons with the great Armagh/Italian Romeo Forte where I was also introduced to the worlds of jazz, blues and boogie woogie! Then, after hearing Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin's Dolphin's Way album, I started experimenting with traditional music on the piano.----------------------------------------On leaving school I went to study music at University College Cork. It was here I learnt about, and was exposed to, a very wide range of different music. I was able to play with musicians and groups as diverse as the University Symphony Orchestra, The Baroque Music Ensemble, the Modern Music Ensemble, various jazz groups, as well as with traditional musicians from all over the country. On completion of a B.Mus degree I moved on to the University of Limerick where I studied for an M.A. in Traditional Music Performance. This course allowed me the opportunity to concentrate mostly on piano performance with help from some of the leading teachers in Ireland, including Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, who was also the head of the faculty.----------------------------------------As a piano player I have played and recorded with many different bands and individuals over the past thirteen years. While still only seventeen and living in Armagh, I joined the band Upstairs in a Tent, where I played alongside Brian Finnegan (now of Flook) and Kathryn Tickell. More recently I have recorded on albums and performed with groups such as - Nomos, my brothers Niall and Cillian Vallely, Karan Casey, Alan Kelly, Conor Byrne and Méabh O’Hare, Martin Meehan, Barry Kerr, Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin and Mel Mercier. I am currently a full time member of the Karan Casey Band and featured prominently on her most recent album "Ships in the Forest".---------------------------------------My most recent project has been with the band Buille along with my brother Niall. We have just released our second album - Buille 2 - in May 2009. The album is made up entirely of new compositions and also features Brian Morrissey, Paul Meehan, Ed Boyd, Zoe Conway, Cillian Vallely, Kate Ellis, Karen Dervan and Neil Yates on trumpet. It's available from www.crowvalleymusic.com!!!---------------------------------- ------As a fiddle player I co-founded the band North Cregg in Cork in 1996. With them I went on to record three albums - And They Danced All Night (1999), Mi Da:za (2001) and Summer at my Feet (2003) - and toured extensively all over Ireland, Europe and into America. The band played at some of the most prestigious folk festivals in the world including Milwaukee Irish Fest, Cambridge Folk Festival, Tonder Festival, Denmark, Dramouter Festival and Celtic Connections, Glasgow. ----------------------------------------My first fiddle influences were from my mothers native county of Donegal where I spent quite a bit of time as a teenager. Later after moving to Cork I gradually became more and more interested in the music of Sliabh Luachra. I currently content myself with playing fiddle around the session scene in Cork city as well as the occasional gig.----------------------------------------As well as performing music full-time, I have also been teaching music extensively. I taught fiddle at the Armagh Pipers Club for 11 years as well as taking master classes at various festivals around Ireland and further afield. I am also an occasional piano tutor on the M.A. course in Traditional Music Performance at the University of Limerick and on the music degree course at the Dundalk Institute of Technology.----------------------------------------Outside the traditional music world I have performed with Dublin-based contemporary music ensemble – Crash; and also worked as Musical Director for the Belfast based theatre company, Dubbeljoint.----------------------------------------I am also an external traditional music examiner for the London College of Music.----------------------------------------My debut album Strayaway, released in 2005, can be purchased online at www.crowvalleymusic.com (www.shopcreator.com/mall/crowvalleymusic). You can also get copies of CDs by Buille, Karan Casey, Niall Vallely and Cillian Vallely.