Éamonn Cagney

COLLABORATIONS

Collaboration is at the heart of Éamonn Cagney’s music. Of his longstanding duo with Niwel Tsumbu, the Irish Times commented: ‘This duo had a cataclysm of moods and moves to share, unveiling a cavernous stash of redemptive music, and promise of much more to come,’ calling Cagney’s intricate percussion talent ‘calculus-like’. The list of Cagney’s collaborators is wide-ranging, including Liam Ó Maonlaí, Roger Doyle, the Abbey Theatre, the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, John Spillane, Martin Tourish (Altan), Míchéal Ó Súilleabháin, Denise Chaila, Iarla Ó Lionáird, Lisa O’Neill and Louis César Ewande—stellar musicians all. 

Cagney’s collaborative spirit is displayed on the title track of his second album Enchantment, a collaboration with Niwel Tsumbu (nylon string guitar) and Martin Tourish (button accordion). Opening with martial-sounding block chords on the nylon-string guitar, the tune soon shifts into a weaving traditional Irish jig whose melody is doubled on guitar and accordion over congas, djembe and shaker. Here is a spine-tingling effect: a genuinely twenty-first Irish music dancing across genres and styles, carrying national artistic heritage into a global future.