Vocal Chords

Vocal Chords is a multi award winning music documentary series made by Athena Media for RTÉ Lyric fm presented by one of Ireland’s most acclaimed sean-nós singers Iarla Ó Lionáird made with the funding support of the BAI and the TV licence fee. The initial project, in 2015 maps a global exploration of the power of song.

In a sonic journey across the world Iarla and the production team, Robert Hope and Michael Gallen, recorded stories and songs  from South Africa to Siberia. The series posed that eternal question of

‘Why do we sing, and what happens when we sing?’

Following from that five part series, the production team created a second strand Vocal Chords In Conversation where Iarla recorded with outstanding singers and discovered their motivation, influences and their life’s relationship with their singing voice.

We started with Peter Gabriel (2015) and then added episodes with Sinead Ó Connor, Christy Moore, Julie Fowlis, Paul Brady, Peggy Seeger and Maighread & Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill, Linda Buckley and Veronica Dunne.

The series won Gold three times at the New York Radio Festival – first in 2016 for the initial 5 part series, then in 2017 for the Paul Brady episode and in 2018 for the Peggy Seeger episode.

The prototype for the In Conversation series with Peter Gabriel won Silver in New York for global music programme in 2015. It has also been recognised at the Celtic Media Festival (2016) for the episode ‘Singing Our Way Home‘.