BBC Radio 2 Folk Award Winners ÍMAR To Play The Atkinson This May

BBC Radio 2 Folk Award Winners ÍMAR To Play The Atkinson This May

BBC Radio 2 Folk Award Winners Ímar will play The Atkinson, Southport on Thursday 10th May. Following a stellar start to the year with sold-out performances at the Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow and the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad, as well as taking home the Horizon Award at 2018’s BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, Ímar will be playing some of the furthest reaches of the UK to continue the fun this May.

Featuring current and former members of Mànran, RURA, Talisk, Barrule, Cara, Mabon and The Lowground, whose collectively-crammed trophy cabinet includes a BBC Young Folk Award and several All-Britain/All-Ireland titles, Glasgow-based five-piece Ímar have quickly established a name for themselves in their own right. With recent appearances at Denmark’s Tønder Festival and Canada’s Celtic Colours Festival under their belt, and after two nominations in the 2017 Scots Trad Award for Album of the Year and Best Live Act, they recently emerged from recording their second album with a new energy and fresh tunes for their upcoming tour.

Ímar’s formation embodies a personal reconnection with its members’ formative years, dating back long before their recent camaraderie around Glasgow’s celebrated session scene. Adam Brown (bodhrán), Adam Rhodes (bouzouki), Mohsen Amini (concertina, who also received the award for Musician of the Year at the 2018 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards), Ryan Murphy (uilleann pipes) and Tomás Callister (fiddle) share a strong background in Irish music – although only Murphy actually hails from Ireland; Rhodes and Callister are from the Isle of Man, whilst Amini is a Glasgow native, and Brown originally from Suffolk – and it is these foundations which underpin both Ímar’s instrumentation and material, centred on the overlapping cultural heritage between Scotland, Ireland and the Isle of Man. All three places once shared the same Gaelic language – the name Ímar comes from a 9th-century king who reigned across this combined territory – and a similar kinship endures between their musical traditions.

Uilleann piper Ryan Murphy said “We’re so excited to be heading to Southport this May, on our tour of the UK. When the band got together we weren’t really sure what would come of it, but as soon as we all sat down to play together properly, it just worked. We’re going back to the music we started out playing – which is ultimately the reason why we’re all here as musicians, and it’s so special to be able to share that with audiences all over the UK.”