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The show about traditional music, and the bigger stories behind it. Host Shannon Heaton talks to musicians, dancers, and scholars about where Irish music has been, where it's going, and what...
Episode 92-Eagles and Eggplants--Going for the gold year round... Things change over the years. But a lot of the same stories (and tunes) ju...
As tunes and songs get passed around they transform. Airs and hornpipes turn into jigs or reels, entire parts get added or condensed, melodi...
For this episode of Irish Music Stories, host Shannon Heaton talks to Clare fiddler Sorcha Costello to dig down to the roots of a botanicall...
For this installment of Irish Music Stories, host Shannon Heaton tucks into an old jig that has become known as The Morning Lark. It's an ex...
Early 20th century musician George White painted the New York scene with dance tunes on his piccolo; and the tune bearing his name has gone...
As magical new Irish music podcasts emerge, as dark forces swirl around the world, and as much of the northern hemisphere enters into shorte...
In this six-episode "Sidequest" series, Irish Music Stories host Shannon Heaton shares music from her "Perfect Maze" album (pollinator-inspi...
In this six-episode "Sidequest" series, Irish Music Stories host Shannon Heaton shares music from her "Perfect Maze" album (pollinator-inspi...
In this six-episode "Sidequest" series, Irish Music Stories host Shannon Heaton shares music from her "Perfect Maze" album (pollinator-inspi...
In this six-episode "Sidequest" series, Irish Music Stories host Shannon Heaton shares music from her "Perfect Maze" album (pollinator-inspi...
In this six-episode "Sidequest" series, Irish Music Stories host Shannon Heaton shares music from her "Perfect Maze" album (pollinator-inspi...
In this six-episode "Sidequest" series, Irish Music Stories host Shannon Heaton shares music from her "Perfect Maze" album (pollinator-inspi...
When you're tracing a song through six generations, and you're digging into distinct versions of dance tunes carried by players from East Cl...
What is the U.S. Electoral College? And what does it have to do with The Kesh Jig and The Humours of Glendart? This election adjacent explor...
When you're making an instrument, you're forming something that can be used to design a melody. Or a musical life. This episode follows a pr...
Irish musicians, and writers, and home makers can all benefit by learning some rules and technical skills—and by allowing a little spontanei...
Boston producer Brian O'Donovan made a lot of space for Irish music and culture. He was dedicated to sharing it widely. And though he presen...
Could traditional music sessions exist without listeners? Are the non-playing listeners in public spaces important for tune players? Here's...
Communities. Forests. Families. All of these different ecosystems contain a lot of different components that weave and work together. And as...
In part one of the Fruitful Fells, we met modern and 19th century activists dedicated to making beauty available to current and future human...
There are little creatures, trees, ponds, and pedestrians all over the earth. And there are bushels of ballads about the charms of nature. A...
The weekly Irish music session is a specific niche affair, with a particular code of conduct. Gift giving also has its own rules, at least i...
New inventions and technology can make life—and Irish music—more convenient, more accessible, and sweeter…. and more complicated. This episo...
Lunch routines, laundry, kid art supplies, spoons, and teacups are details of domestic life that don't usually make it into the photo albums...
Presenting concerts can be about a lot more than throwing someone onstage. Matt Smith manages Club Passim in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which...
Why did kids carry dead birds on sticks all over Ireland on the 26th of December? And what did this all have to do with first century Christ...
Loss can spark achingly beautiful music. It can also spark new forms of creativity for musicians. This episode is a meditation on the stubbo...
As tunes travel they change. And to turn an old Irish reel into an old time tune can involve adjusting notes to suit different instruments,...
Beauty is in the eye of the (informed) beholder. Where many of us might overlook a grubby little copy book or an awkwardly named interlibrar...
It's really exciting and important to have kids playing Irish music. And it takes organization, skill, and willing adults to create learning...
Most Irish traditional tunes have names. Some go by many different names. So what's in a name? Do names help us associate tunes with people,...
When flute player and police captain Francis O'Neill published his first and most extensive collection of Irish tunes in 1903, he included a...
Most of the Irish traditional jigs and reels I play have associations, information, history, and sentiments bundled into them. Even these da...
Irish Music Stories is the show about traditional music and the bigger stories behind it, like how important, ancient songs and little short...
Learn how and why Shannon Heaton creates the Irish Music Stories podcast, as Matt Heaton turns the mic around in the sunroom studio. Tune in...
Setbacks and surprises are inevitable. Weather and illness—and all sorts of other plan disrupters—are not always foreseeable or controllable...
For many Irish musicians, it can be a tricky and essential game to stay active and find balance between artistic, intellectual, social, and...
Flute player John McKenna left troves of treasures when he recorded 78 RPMS in the 1920s; Na Píobairí Uilleann in Dublin helped preserve Iri...
Irish Music Stories is the show about traditional music, and the bigger stories behind it. Episodes are often 40-50 minutes long (and 51 sec...
For centuries, traditional music in Wales have endured empire, organized religion, and connections with port towns in Ireland, like Wexford...
Plants can be carefully cultivated or can spread naturally. Songs, too, can spread deliberately or accidentally. Here's a small sampling of...
If you want to share music with folks outside of your home, you gotta carry your instruments and gear (unless you're live-streaming). And if...
How much power does a backdrop have? As the Irish Music Stories production team works to assemble episodes and bonus materials, Shannon expl...
After a horrific week of social unrest in the U.S., and as Irish Music Stories begins a major overhaul, host Shannon Heaton offers a meditat...
Trailer for the December 2020 episode of Irish Music Stories .
What's up with stage banter? And why all the joking around between tunes in a session? Explore the on- and offstage chat that surrounds trad...
How do new traditional Irish and Scottish tunes come together? How do composers conjure melodies? Composers Liz Carroll, Dáithí Sproule, and...
Learning just a few words in Gaelic is mannerly when visiting Ireland and Scotland. And it can be a way IN to cultural values and humor. Mai...
There's no definitive Irish or Scottish music method book. A lot of seasoned practitioners learned their music in kitchens and pubs. So how...
The topic of sustainable travel for touring musicians has been reframed, as Covid-19 has cancelled most music live music events for an unfor...