Some of the most important names in Irish music - guitarist Arty McGlynn, fiddler Nollaig Casey and harpist Máire Ní Chathasaigh - come together with Britain's flat-picking guitarist Chris Newman on Thursday 23 February for a concert at Square Chapel Centre for the Arts.

Collectively known as The Heartstrings Quartet, this super group recorded their new CD Heartstring Sessions last summer with world-class guitar-playing, sensuous singing, fiddle-playing and harping of power and passion. The Quartet began touring the UK and Ireland with the CD in October and now continues with a date in Halifax.

Máire Ní Chathasaigh is Ireland's most influential harpist. As a teenager in County Cork in the early 1970s she invented an entirely new style that quickly became the norm amongst both her contemporaries and the younger generation of harpists. She recorded the very first harp album to concentrate on traditional Irish dance music, The New-Strung Harp, and in 2001 she received Irish music's award, Traditional Musician of the Year.

Chris Newman’s has played folk music since childhood and after exploring the jazz scene in his late teens, and after a brief foray into the commercial world that resulted in a silver disc for producing the Top Ten hit The Oldest Swinger in Town, he resolved to concentrate on his first love - the acoustic guitar. He and Máire have toured together worldwide since 1988. They released their sixth CD, FireWire, in 2007.

Máire's sister Nollaig Casey is one of Ireland’s most eminent musicians with her own unique way of playing traditional Irish music on the fiddle. Her powerful presence has graced two of Ireland's most influential bands, the legendary Planxty and the ground-breaking Coolfin.

Arty McGlynn is one of the best-known and most influential musicians in Ireland. Born in County Tyrone, his family was steeped in traditional music and he has toured professionally from the age of 15, and in 1979 recorded McGlynn's Fancy. He subsequently became one of the most sought after musicians in the country, playing and recording with Christy Moore, Paul Brady and The Chieftains and as a member of Planxty.

Thursday 23 February 8pm
Tickets: £14 & £12 concessions
Box Office: 01422 349422

See the show in the What's On section here

ENDS

CONTACT
Suzanne Wynne, Square Chapel Centre for the Arts, 01422 353073 / suzanne@squarechapel.co.uk