Christmas concert by the Irish harp and guitar duo Máire Ní Chathasaigh and Chris Newman, blending Irish tradition, swing jazz, bluegrass and baroque with festive favourites.
Máire Ní Chathasaigh and Chris Newman bring their Celtic Christmas Strings show to Tarvin Community Centre on Saturday 5 December. It's a duo of Irish harp and guitar, and the set is built around festive favourites reimagined through their own arrangements. They've been playing together since their 1987 debut at the Cambridge Folk Festival, and in the years since they've performed in twenty-four countries across five continents.
Ní Chathasaigh, a Gradam Ceoil TG4 Musician of the Year, is known for her influence on Irish harp playing; her 1985 album The New Strung Harp was the first to focus on traditional Irish dance music. Newman is one of the world's finest flat-picking guitarists, having toured with Stéphane Grappelli and spent twenty-one years as principal guitar tutor on Newcastle University's Folk B.Mus course. Together they've forged one of the most distinctive sounds in modern acoustic music.
The Christmas show blends Irish tradition, swing jazz, bluegrass and baroque, with the festive songs they're working from rearranged into something intricate and expressive. The Living Tradition called it a "delightful, satisfyingly original and often refreshingly unpredictable take on festive favourites", and both have been described as "in the virtuoso class" by The Guardian and "masterful" by Folk Wales.
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It runs from 7:30pm to 9:20pm at Tarvin Community Centre, Chester, CH3 8LY. Tickets are between £0.00 and £12.00, with a booking fee per transaction.
