Collection CKE-18709 - Claire Keville Collection

Claire Keville. Musician, music teacher and broadcaster originally from Claran, near Headford in Co. Galway. She taught herself The Boys of Bluehill on the tin whistle at the age of six and from there enhanced her repertoire by picking up the odd tune from her maternal Grandfather who played both tin whistle and melodeon. Formal lessons ensued and Claire began learning classical piano at seven and later at the age of nine, she started on the concertina.

She has always been drawn to the music of East Galway and regards the music of Paddy Fahey as inspirational. She won the Oireachtas as a teenager and later studied music at U.C.C where she obtained a distinction in performance playing both classical and traditional music. In 1999, she read for a Masters degree in Ethnomusicology at University of Limerick and graduated with a first class honours degree.
She works part time as a traditional music broadcaster on Clare fm. Claire has performed on TV many times, most notably in Dec 2007 where she presented and played concertina on Geantraí. She has also appeared on Geantraí in 1998 and 2004 and has performed on Sé mo Laoch and The Miltown Sessions.

In addition, she has worked as a researcher for TG4 and has presented awards at the annual Gradam Ceoil concert where she was a member of the jury from 2006
She teaches each year at the Willie Clancy Summer School and frequently gives workshops /concerts at home and abroad .

In 2009 she released her début solo recording entitled The Daisy Field playing both concertina and harpsichord with guest musicians comprising of Liam Lewis and her
sister Breda Keville on fiddles, Geraldine Cotter on piano and Terence O guitar. This CD was funded by the Arts Council of Ireland and features a no. of Paddy Fahey compositions and also tunes by other Galway composers such as Tommy Coen and Paddy Kelly.