Clare’s Sorcha Costello will be presented with her Gradam Ceoil award this Sunday while the TG4 Gradam Ceoil Awards Concert will be Broadcast on TG4 and Worldwide On-Line, this Sunday at 9.30pm.
The Annual TG4 2021 Gradam Ceoil Awards pay homage to musicians who have advanced, strengthened, and preserved traditional music in Ireland. The awards ceremony now in its 24th year, will be recorded at Whitla Hall at Queens University Belfast on Sunday October 24th and will air on TG4 on Halloween night to celebrate TG4’s 25th birthday .
The 2021 Musician of the Year will be awarded to Angelina Carberry. Angelina was born in Manchester but is living in Longford since the 1990’s, where her family are from. Angelina started playing traditional music on the tin whistle, but quickly followed in the footsteps of her grandfather Kevin and took up the banjo.
The Carberry clan are renowned musicians, her father Peter plays the button accordion, his uncle Peter the uilleann pipes, his son Noel also the uilleann pipes and Peter’s grandsons Diarmuid and Kevin also play the uilleann pipes. Though her style echoes that of her grandfather, Kevin, who was a well-known player at Longford céilís and house dances, Angelina has developed a light-handed, sparkling touch on the banjo.
From Tulla in east county Clare, fiddle player, Sorcha Costello will be awarded the title of Young Musician of the Year. Sorcha’s musical lineage is peerless; her mother Mary MacNamara is a renowned concertina player and her grandmother Ita’s musical pedigree reached back generations.
Steve Cooney will be awarded Composer of the Year. Born in Melbourne Australia in 1953, he came to Ireland in 1980 and maintains his connections with the Aboriginal culture there, into which he was initiated. He has ancestral links with Tipperary, Cavan, and Galway. Steve Cooney is best known for his development of an influential style of guitar accompaniment to traditional Irish dance music which he developed in West Kerry and for which he won the National Entertainment Award with Séamus Begley in 1997.
This year’s Lifetime Achievement Award goes to Cork native Seán Ó Sé who first rose to fame as a singer, singing and recording the most popular song An Poc Ar Buille, with Seán Ó Riada and Ceoltóirí Chúlainn back in the 60’s. Since then, his voice has been recognised as one of the great voices of this country and cannot be surpassed while singing.
Tyrone’s Niall Hanna is this year’s Singer of the Year. His grandfather Geordie Hanna, Geordie’s sister Sarah Anne O’Neill, and the extended Hanna and O’Neill families ensured he was immersed in music from a very early age. Niall has embraced the wider Ulster traditional song repertoire while also developing his own song writing talents. His sense of place and family strongly influence his musical journey, and his solo work and various musical collaborations continues to bring Ulster music and song to a wider Irish and International audience.
The Glengormley School of Traditional Music is awarded the Outstanding Contribution Award for 2021. Over its twenty-year history, this essential hub has nurtured countless musicians, many of whom have gone on to work professionally. The summer courses in Donegal bond young people socially and musically and instils in them a deep passion for music-making.
The full list of TG4 Gradam Ceoil 2020 recipients reads as follows:
Ceoltóir na Bliana/Musician of the Year: Angelina Carbery
Ceoltóir Óg/Young Musician of the Year: Sorcha Costello
Cumadóir na Bliana / Composer of the Year: Steve Cooney
Gradam Saoil/Lifetime Achievement: Seán Ó Sé
Amhránaí na Bliana/Singer of the Year: Niall Hanna
Gradam Comaoine/Outstanding Contribution: Glengormley School of Traditional Music
Gradam Ceoil TG4 is the premier annual traditional music awards scheme and academy. An independent panel of adjudicators selects recipients each year. It is not a competition. The Gradam Ceoil recipients are presented with a specially commissioned piece by leading sculptor John Coll as well as a small stipend.
This year’s awards will be presented at the Gradam Ceoil TG4 Concert in the Whitla Hall in Queen’s University Belfast and Broadcast on TG4 and Worldwide On-Line on Halloween night at 9:30pm.