Reviews
Irish Music Magazine (2008)
Rod Stradling (June 12th 2008)
Blimey! This is just stunning! (sound clip - track 1) And, for once, the publicity blurb doesn't exaggerate:
Ciar‡n î Maonaigh and Aidan O'Donnell are two young fiddle players who hail from opposite ends of that most musical of counties, Donegal. Ciaran is from the Gaoth Dobhair gaeltacht in north Donegal while Aidan hails from Dunkineely in the south of the county. They are are rapidly forging a reputation for exhilarating and challenging music that draws on the rich heritage of their native place. Their music making is marked by an intricate and intelligent approach that still manages to maintain the element of fiery exhuberance that is the hallmark of traditional fiddle music from Donegal. This is traditional music for the 21st century - mindful of its origins but breathtakingly exciting in its ambition and delivery.
Irish Times, Siobhan Long (March 14th 2008)
Ciarán Ó Maonaigh and Aidan O’Donnell & Maighread and Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill at the Project, Dublin.
From their opening exhortation to the audience to treat the black box of the Project as if it were "just a big kitchen", the duelling fiddlers, Aidan O'Donnell and Ciarán Ó Maonaigh, hit the ground running. Although their repertoire could never deny their Donegal provenance, they're no hostages to fortune, opting instead for bold interpretations of classic tunes borrowed from the likes of John Doherty, Francie Mooney and Vincent Campbell.
Irish Music Magazine, (November 2009)
Aidan O'Donnell, Ciaran O Maonaigh, Damien McGeehan are three young lads playing like a trio of old fells, and I can think of no higher accolade than that to describe the effect these musicians conjure up from just three fiddles.
This is solid traditional music, earthy and authentic, lively and loaded with history. You’ve probably never heard anything like it, (unless you’ve already picked up their debut album or listened to one of the older generation play a tune in the quite time between tune mayhem in a late night session). To describe the sound might put many folks off, because terms such as smooth, easy listening, complex crossover combinations, well they don’t apply here. No, this is extremely difficult to capture in words, it’s the real thing, three fiddles sounding like fiddles, there’s no aural airbrushing from some engineer with a trigger finger on pro-tools, this is as raw bar as you can get. No pals on boxes or banjos to round out the sound, because the lads realise there is enough musical latitude from a humble fiddle to create a complex sound without recourse to the standard band formula, as long as you keep it clean and simple and of course they do just that.............
Rod Stradling (18th November 2009)
I enthusiastically reviewed Fidil, their first album, last year, and can find very little extra to add to the praise I proffered then! This new CD, like the first, is just stunning!
Ciarán Ó Maonaigh and Aidan O'Donnell have been joined by Damien McGeehan on a third fiddle, yet remain as tight as ever. To quote their publicity:
Their music making is marked by an intricate and intelligent approach that still manages to maintain the element of fiery exhuberance that is the hallmark of traditional fiddle music from Donegal. This is traditional music for the 21st century - mindful of its origins but breathtakingly exciting in its ambition and delivery..........
Irish Echo (18th November 2009)
What could be better than two unaccompanied fiddlers? If you ask Gaoth Dobhair's Ciaran O Maonaigh, the 2003 TG4 young musician of the year, and Dunkineely's Aidan O'Donnell, they'd point to Damien McGeehan as a third.
He is now a member of Fidil, formed by O Maonaigh and O'Donnell, who in 2008 released their first duet album, "Fidil," and were quickly recognized as one of the most compelling, if counterintuitive, duos to emerge recently in Irish traditional music.
"The only instruments used in the making of this recording were fiddles," states a liner note in their new CD, "Fidil 3." The absence of guitar or piano backing for Fidil flies in the face of tradition within tradition. Even Sligo fiddling virtuoso Michael Coleman had a guitar or piano -- not always optimally -- on his recordings.........
Irish Times ‘CD of the Week’ (27 November 2009)Times
SIOBHÁN LONG
This week's CD choice reviewed
FIDIL
3Claddagh Records *****
The arc of the bow and the delicate musicality of the four fiddle strings are celebrated with a rare mix of virtuosity and sheer joie de vivre on 3. Ciarán Ó Maonaigh and Aidan O’Donnell already sizzled on their 2008 duo debut, Fidil . Now, just 18 months later, they’ve morphed their debut CD title to herald the arrival of a fiddling trio, with fellow Donegal player Damien McGeehan joining their ranks........
