Helen Shaw’s guest in this episode of The Family of Things is film-maker Frank Berry whose work tells stories of social realism in often tough suburbs from the documentary film ‘Ballymun Lullaby’ at the time of the tearing down of the Ballymun Towers to dramas like ‘I Used to Live Here’, touching on youth mental health and suicide.
Continue reading “New Episode of The Family of Things: Episode 15 – Frank Berry”
Continue reading “New Episode of Vocal Chords with guest Linda Buckley on December 3rd”
Continue reading “Latest Instalment of Vocal Chords – In Conversation with Glen Hansard”
Continue reading “A second chance to hear our award winning series Wilde Stories”
Athena Media’s ambitious transmedia project – Wilde Stories, has been nominated as one of ten finalists for the prestigious Kieran Hegarty Award FOR Innovation at this year’s Celtic Media Festival which recognises innovation in the use of digital media.
Wilde Stories is a transmedia creative arts project by Athena Media around the fairytales of Oscar Wilde. All 5 episodes of the Wilde Stories radio series are now available as podcasts. Visit www.wildestories.ie for more about the project.
Athena Media’s Helen Shaw will be representing us at the festival, which is taking place right now in the Isle Of Man (pictured above!).
The Festival is an annual three-day celebration of broadcasting, film talent and excellence from Scotland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany.
Athena Media has previously won a Torc for our radio project Winning Women in 2012 and we were also short listed for the Kieran Hegarty Award for our transmedia It’s Your Right project promoting awareness of children’s rights.
The creative team on Wilde Stories is Helen Shaw, Michael Gallen, Felicity Clear, audio editor Pearse Ó Caoimh and digital editor John Howard. The production partners for the project are the BAI, RTÉ Lyric FM and Dublin City Council.
and shares a conversation of family, song and language with them; from the stories of their father, the singer and folk song collector Aodh Ó Domhnaill, and his sister, the blind singer Neilí Ni Domhnaill, natives of Rann na Feirste, Donegal, to their own roots in the Meath Gaeltacht.
In this segment from the upcoming documentary feature Iarla talks to the sisters about that journey back to Donegal when they were children, to what they see as their spiritual home, and how their Dad would tip them sixpence for the first sighting of Errigal. In the piece you hear the song Níl sé ina lá that the sisters learnt as girls from their Aunt Neilí and recorded by them on the album Idir an Dá Sholas.
This feature documentary, in the award winning Vocal Chords series, is a unique insight into a family whose work has played a profound part in preserving the traditional culture and soundscape of Ireland and gives an intimate portrait of sisters, and singers, who share a deep and instinctive bond in song and life.
From their first band Skara Brae, with their late brother Micheal, the sisters share their work together and separately, Tríona in the ground-breaking Bothy Band and Maighread in her acclaimed solo work. They sing together for Iarla a song once sung by their late Aunty Neili and collected by Maighread’s husband and traditional music devotee, Cathal Goan.
Vocal Chords is an Athena Media production for RTÉ Lyric fm made with the support of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland and the TV licence fee.
The producer is Helen Shaw, The audio editor is Pearse Ó Caoimh. The digital editor is John Howard.
Photo image by Helen Shaw – all rights in Vocal Chords, recordings and images, rests with Athena Media Ltd. vocalchords.ie for more about the series.
Wilde stories, our transmedia Irish art, literature and music project built around original music composition and landmark radio series re-imagining Oscar Wilde through the prism of his fairytales has been nominated for the Kieran Hegarty Award for Innovation at the Celtic Media Festival 2017.
The creative team on Wilde Stories is Helen Shaw, Michael Gallen, Felicity Clear and digital editor John Howard. The production partners for the project are the BAI, RTÉ Lyric FM and Dublin City Council
The latest edition of the award winning series Vocal Chords features the legendary singer and composer Peggy Seeger in conversation with sean nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird – March 24th RTÉ lyric fm at 7pm.
Peggy Seeger was born in the US, the daughter of song collectors and composers, Charles Seeger and Ruth Crawford Seeger, but has spent most of her life in the UK and Iarla travelled to her home in Oxford to capture her life’s journey in song and singing. Seeger, whose brothers were the singers Pete and Mike Seeger, came to the UK in the 1950s and met, and later married, the folk singer and writer Ewan MacColl. MacColl wrote the song ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’ for her and the couple went off to play a leading role in the British folk revival and developed a documentary style of social song writing, working with local communities, to give voice to their stories in song through the Radio Ballads.
Seeger, who is now 82, is still performing, sometimes with her two sons Neill and Calum MacColl, and writing songs. MacColl died in 1989 and since then Peggy Seeger’s formed a civil partnership with Irene Pyper Scott, a Northern Irish singer who is living in New Zealand.
‘She’s the passionate love of my life,’
– she says, but adds they can’t live together so splits her time between Oxford and New Zealand.
In this edition of Vocal Chords Peggy Seeger shares her extraordinary life, growing up hearing grassroots singers like Lead Belly perform and learning songs from her mother’s song collecting. She remains politically active and shares a song she’s written for Donald Trump’s presidency, an event she admits that leaves her afraid and scared.
The project website has podcasts to the original 5 part series ‘An Odyssey of the Voice’ and short cuts of singing from across the world as well as the full series of ‘In Conversation’.
In Conversation with Peggy Seeger is broadcast on March 24th RTÉ lyric fm 7pm and available online afterward via the RTÉ website and via vocalchords.ie.
