Irish flute player Eimear McGeown has just published a lovely rendition of May It Be – a song co-composed and sung by Enya for the 2001 Peter Jackson movie The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Eimear is playing a keyless Martin Doyle C flute made of African Blackwood and is accompanied by Jonny Toman on guitar. Enjoy …
And for anyone wishing to hear Enya’s original version of May It Be …
Irish flautist Eimear McGeown has just returned to Ireland from the Budapest Flute Academy in Hungary and she stopped in for a quick visit with Martin Doyle at his workshop in the County Clare today. As is often the case when musicians get together, one thing led to another and this took place…
Playing a few tunes with Martin Doyle Flutes in his workshop on his new style of Irish flutes. This one is boxwood, they’re going to be great starter flutes…
Posted by Eimear McGeown – Flute on Thursday, 31 March 2016
The tunes are Tom Ward’s Downfall and Anderson’s – both reels.
September 26 this year saw Martin Doyle attend the 20th Sligo Festival of Baroque Music where he had been invited to have a instrument makers stall and offer a workshop on Baroque flute making.
Martin Doyle’s stall at the 20th Sligo Festival of Baroque Music, September 2015
Reflecting on the event, Martin commented that he had a wonderful time, met some lovely people and attended some excellent workshops and recitals.
Members of the Collegium Marianum offer a recital at the 20th Sligo Festival of Baroque Music, September 2015
One of the people who really impressed Martin was the Czech flute player Jana Semerádová, whose Baroque flute master class and recitals Martin attended. The following is a video clip of Jana performing a concerto in G major for flute by the Italian Baroque composer and violinist Giuseppe Tartini with members of the Collegium Marianum.
Here is Martin Doyle‘s video pick for October 2012 – the Grammy Award winning flute player, Rhonda Larson performing the hymn Be Still My Soul. (Note Rhonda’s harmonic singing while playing the flute in the opening moments of the performance.)
Rhonda Larson says she was born wanting to play the flute – where that desire came from remains a mystery to her. It was finally at age 10 that Rhonda first picked up a flute, a journey that has taken her to the farthest reaches of the world. Her ‘practice room’ was a high mountain ridge outside her family home in Bozeman, Montana, where the sky is endless and the breathtaking mountains cut through your soul. It is not difficult, then, to understand that the depths of Rhonda’s music comes from a place in her heart that celebrates the beauty of the human spirit, found most alive in nature. “I began to see that music has a larger role for humanity: that it can truly speak to the shared expressions of our human souls.”
Read more: Larson’s Story-Form Biography »
A very fine quote from Rhonda’s homepage:
“The dignity of the artist lies in their duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world.”
– G.K. Chesterton.