Strabane Brass Band hang out the ‘Bunting’

STRABANE Brass Band is to feature in a new BBC documentary airing this Sunday night celebrating the music of Edward Bunting.

The documentary, called ‘Beart Bunting’ and produced by Derry-based documentarian Deaglán Ó Mocháin, will have the band play tunes from the Edward Bunting Collection. Bunting was a musical collector of Irish fiddle tunes from the 1790s till the 1840s.

Asked how the band came to be involved, Deaglán explained, “I contacted Tommy Barr about having the band partake and he was very enthusiastic. I explained about the Bunting collection and he arranged for me to call in on the band in Strabane. Also, if you’ll pardon the pun, instrumental in the process were conductor Charles Fyffe and musical arranger Bob Quick.”

Filmed on St Patrick’s Day this year, Strabane Brass rehearsed a selection of tunes and Deaglán was impressed with how quickly the band got on top of the material. Also, one of the younger members of the band, Niamh O’Donnell was also interviewed for the show. The band then teamed up with six traditional musicians including fiddle players, Conor Caldwell and Aidan O’Donnell; two harpists, Lauren Ní Néill and Eilís Lavelle, and two Dingle-based musicians in Aoife and Deirdre Granville.

Deaglán continued, “These six were chosen because they all have an affinity with this part of the Bunting collection – there’s a strong fiddle tradition of playing marches for dancing and the Granville’s grew up with a marching band tradition in Dingle.

“We had one morning of rehearsals in Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin in Derry, and then straight into a performance of around eight tunes in total on a specially constructed stage. The standard of musicianship was so high they flew through the day’s filming, and left us with a concert of first class music for the documentary. Conor Caldwell, Bob Quick and Charles arranged it so that every set of musicians would get a piece to themselves and we would have a few tunes where everyone would play together. The big finale was a well-known tune called Garryowen, finishing the concert with a lot of energy and drive.”

Asked how he felt it turned out, Deaglán concluded by paying tribute to the band.

“Strabane Brass Band is a real credit to the town, I know it’s not an easy thing to keep going, and particularly to play to such a high standard, but when I see them perform now at community and charity events I’ll have a better appreciation of how much work goes into playing at that level.”

The documentary will be broadcast this Sunday at 10.15pm on BBC2.