Legendary Donegal fiddlers The Campbells feature in music documentary Friday Nov 16th Nov on RTÉ Lyric fm

Legendary Donegal fiddlers, brothers Jimmy and Vincie Campbell, are the subject of the final programme in the series Making Music Together currently being broadcast on RTÉ Lyric fm.  The series explores a range of human relationships in which music plays a particularly strong role.  The programme will be aired on Friday next, November 16th, at 7pm.

As well as spending time with the Campbells themselves, hearing their stories about  life in The Crowes, the small valley rich in musical culture that their mother hailed from and from which they got so much of their music, the programme also features several younger Donegal fiddlers who have been strongly influenced by The Campbells.  Among them are Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, Tara Connaughton, Aidan O’Donnell, Caoimhín Mac Aodh and Jimmy’s son Peter, who is keeping up the family tradition.   The programme captures the distinctive local style which the Campbells have been so instrumental in preserving, and also the distinctively Donegal atmosphere which pervades every session – and there are many –  with the Campbells at its core.

“They’re like a walking festival” says Altan’s Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh.  “When you see the Campbells coming, it’s a festival.  You know the craic is going to be good!”

The Making Music Together series has explored a range of human relationships in which music plays a very significant role,.  The series also spanned a range of musical genres - classical, jazz, choral singing -  and now trad.  It has also looked at  various kinds of human relationships; a suburban family where music is an essential part of family life;  a couple that has separated but managed to maintain a musical partnership; a traditional community of musicians bonded by their identification with a particular musical style and idiom, and a new community that has formed around the joy of singing together.

Making Music Together is made with the support of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland’s Sound and Vision scheme and is produced for RTÉ Lyric fm by Sound Woman Productions

Making Music Together: The Campbells  will be broadcast on  RTÉ Lyric fm on Friday 16th November at 7pm.