Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh

Teaches at Irish Arts Center

Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh plays traditional and contemporary folk music on Hardanger d'Amore and other fiddles. In addition to being an established solo artist, he performs with two groups The Gloaming and This is How we Fly, in duos with Dan Trueman, Mick O'Brien & Brendan Begley, a trio with Martin Hayes & Peadar Ó Riada, and as part of many other collaborative projects.

Caoimhín's distinctive sound can be traced back to an early interest in both the sound of the flat-pitch uilleann pipes and a love for the traditional music of Kerry and Clare. A proclivity for tuning the fiddle below concert pitch and a tendency to play on two strings simultaneously had already given him a unique and distinctive sound when he first encountered the Norwegian hardanger fiddle, which has since become his chosen instrument. He plays an unusual 10-string instrument made by Salve Håkedal, which lies somewhere between a traditional hardanger and a viola d'amore. The bows he uses are equally beautiful: baroque and transitional bows made by French bowmaker, Michel Jamonneau.

Highlights of 2014 include performing at the Sydney Opera House, theRoyal Albert Hall & Union Chapel in London, the National Concert Hall in Dublin (thrice), a solo concert tour in Italy, a week-long residency in New York, and The Gloaming reaching No.1 in the Irish Album Charts.