 I've got Donal O'Connor, who is the musical director of the Belfast Tradfest, described as the pinnacle of world-class traditional music, concerts, fiery pub sessions and Ireland's fastest growing summer school of traditional music. It's about to celebrate its fifth edition and it starts tomorrow and I'm delighted to have Donal on the phone. Donal, you're very welcome and many thanks for taking time out this morning. Good morning, Jean. Thanks for having me on. So this is your fifth year and it started back in 2017. I suppose it fell casualty to COVID like everything else, but what were the origins of the festival, Donal? Well, that's right, Jean. We came together as an organisation in 2015, in fact. We looked around and we saw that there are some brilliant summer schools of traditional music all along the west coast of Ireland, but we hadn't done anything like that here in Belfast or in the north. And we wanted to bring the best in the business to Belfast to teach so that our young and not-so-young could learn from them and play with them and play sessions and hear them in concert. So we established the Summer School of Traditional Music and, as you say, we ran our first edition in 2017. And it has grown. And in 2019, we re-branched the Belfast Tradfest and we have recorporated now lots of concerts, afternoon events, Kaleys, Festival Club. And we have a session trail sponsored by McConnell's Irish Whiskey in the 62 sessions and 14 of the finest traditional music pubs here in Belfast. So we have a wide range of events taking place over the seven days of the festival from the 23rd, which is tomorrow, and runs all the way to next Sunday, culminating in an outdoor fun family day on the Titanic slipways that we call the Titanic Kaleys. And that will feature the great All-Ireland-winning Kaleys band, the Blackwater Kaleys band, the great her own singer, Niall Hannah, Kira Fox, and many other brilliant performers and dancers that may have a big Kaleys there on the Titanic slipways to celebrate the end of the festival on Sunday, the 30th. And just reading from your program, I see that you're trying to include all traditions and cultural diversity in your Festival Donal. Yeah, well, when we set up first in 2017, we recognise that the soundscape here in Belfast is unique. And it's a musical soundscape that exists nowhere else than we have the fiddle and the flute, and we have the fife and the drum. And so we want to incorporate all aspects of traditional music in under the Belfast Tradfest umbrella. So we have members of all the traditional music organisations here in the city. And we have members from the piping and drumming world. And we recognise that we're a fully-crossed cultural and cross-traditions organisation, and we recognise and embrace the different traditions here. And so as part of the festival, we have the great Scott Wallace of the Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band teaching bagpipes. We have Andy McGregor teaching beginners bagpipes. And if you've always wanted to try the bagpipes, we supply the chanter five days of tuition with the great Andy McGregor. We have Snare Drum with four times world champion Gareth McLeese, Snare Drummer. And we have all the amazing players coming from all parts of the world to teach fiddle and flute. We have Joni Madden flying in from the States to teach Tin Whistle. We have the great John Doyle, John Baez as musical director. He's teaching guitar. We have Mike McGolder coming over from Manchester. John McCusker from Glasgow. Mike and John have just come out of the studio with Eric Cassin. So we have a very, very high caliber of master musician coming to take the five day master classes at the summer school. And then each of the tutors satellites out into a different quarter of the city at night to perform concerts. And we have a great celebration of virus and Scottish music in the Strand, our centre on Tuesday, the 25th. And it's a concert we call with Fife and Drum. And it features the great Mary Bergen, Joni Madden who I mentioned, Finn Moor, the Scottish small piper, Belfast's own Desi Wilkinson and many, many more. And I see, I just, I can't let you let it pass that that Donnie Gall is well represented in the concert, the memory of Sean McGuire. We've got our Breach Harper and Tommy Peebles' daughter performing at that concert, Donald. That's right. And one of the things we like to do at the festival is to celebrate the story of traditional music here in Belfast. So from the outset we've held an annual Sean McGuire Celebratory Concert. And as you mentioned, the great Castle Finn, Fiddler, Breach Harper now residing in Toronto, she heads the bill there. And unfortunately that concert is sold out and it sells out annually. There's always a great draw. Joni Murphy, a pupil of Sean McGuire, will emcee the concert and tell some great stories. And I'm anecdotes about the legendary Sean McGuire Fiddler. And I should say that our second weekend, we have a bumper weekend of traditional music, starting with John McCusker, John Doyle, Mike McGoldrick and Landliffe in the Empire Music Hall, beautiful Baptist Hall and Botanic Avenue, great room for music. And then on Friday night, we have the Allam, an American Transatlantic Supergroup featuring Belfast, John McSherry and Ellen Pipes. And on Saturday then we have, you're very kind to play the great track there from Four Men and a Dog, music for a fine harmonium. We've got the great Four Men and a Dog on Saturday afternoon in the wonderful Mandela Hall. And that's a concert suitable for all ages. And then on Saturday night, we have a great celebration of Scottish music with the wonderful newest singer, Kathleen McGinnis, the Gavik singer from the other Hebrides, and a brilliant festival band, Elephant Sessions, topping off Saturday night. So great opportunity for all of your listeners there in Donegal and surrounding counties to come up to Belfast and enjoy a full weekend of traditional music next weekend. And another thing that caught my eye too was the Belfast Harp Festival. There's your memory, the original festival that was way back in 1792 or something like that? That's right, Jane. Yeah, yeah, we, the summer school takes place in the Ulster University, which is in the Cathedral Quarter in the old part of the city. And on Donegal Street, just around the corner from the university in 1792, one of the most significant events in traditional music took place when the merchant classes of Belfast brought together all the last remaining harpers, old harpers from around the country for a harp festival. And at that festival, a young organist from Belfast Cathedral, Edward Bunting, notated and collected the music. And without that work, we wouldn't have the incredibly significant collection, the Bunting Collection, which is housed in Queen's University here in Belfast. So we celebrate that event annually. And this year, we have a great lineup in Kultalan Magadam O'Feech on the Falls Road with Misha Kelly. We have Ashting Lyon, Luna Monaghan. We have Lauren O'Neill, who is the new Chief Executive of Harp Ireland from Tante Derry and from Glen Olin. And we have Brilliant Accordion Thair from Tante Sligo Dahi Gormley and the Monaghan, Piper Turen and Dinkin. So I think you're a handful of tickets still available to that concert through the Kultalan Magadam O'Feech website. And this should be a wonderful celebration of the harp music. And I see from your festival program as well that you encourage up-and-coming musicians as well as the established ones. And one thing that caught my eye was the Whistle and Sing workshop, where you just bring your own tin whistle and you'll learn some tunes from beginner's level. Yeah, well, as part of the summer school, we wanted to make it as accessible as possible to all abilities and all ages. So we have classes for absolute beginners. As you mentioned, we have a Whistle and Sing program from age five plus. And we teach some of the old traditional Belfast street songs and street games, Dusty Bluebell and Maya Jane and Fair Rosa. And then we have Beginner's Boron. We supply the Boron. If you want to try the Boron for a week, we have Beginner's Bike Type. And then we have all the advanced, up to the advanced level in all of the other instruments, the full range of instruments. We also have a lot of dance classes. We have Shanno's Dancing. We have Set Dancing. We have Traditional Singing with the Great Lengrain, the Country Anthem, Legendary Traditional Singer. And we have your own Kahalo Kareen from Guidoor, teaching Oraniyech, Traditional Singing, Shanno Singing. And so there's a full range of classes there for all ages and all abilities. It's not too late to sign up. And we welcome everybody to come along and join us at the Belfast Trad Festival. And for those people who are travelling and would like to go to the summer school, there's accommodation available. Donal, am I right in saying that? There is. I think there's a few hours left to book it if you want it. You can get in touch with a send us an email. There's accommodation in the university halls of residence directly across the road from the classes. And we have a fantastic offering there, £2.99 for seven nights per person or a family of six, two adults and four kids, £8.99. So incredible value to stay in Belfast City Centre. And you're in the cathedral quarter there. We're all of the pubs, all of the restaurants. And our festival club, I should mention, takes place every night. We have Ineshawn sisters, Paula and Melanie Houghton on Monday night in the festival club alongside the great south arm arcinger, Piers O'Larkham. And we have a full range of concerts taking place in the John Hubar and the Dears Head throughout the festival, late night festival clubs and culminating on Friday and Saturday night with a trad disco or a trisco as it's called. And your session trail now, you're saying there's over 60 sessions taking place. But the format of it, you're actually listening to the master musicians for the first hour and then everybody joins in then. I thought that was a lovely idea that you're listening to. We've seen over the years and this is something we see at a lot of festivals all over the world that there's such demand and popularity now that the sessions can be very busy, flooded with musicians. And everybody comes to a session, I suppose, with a different expectation. You know, a beginner or a learner has a different expectation to a master musician. So one of the things we wanted to try this year was to run some listening sessions. So out of the 62, I think we have a dozen listening sessions where we invite the other musicians to listen to the three master musicians who are about to perform the session for the first hour. And then the floor is open to everybody to join. And it just gives people a chance to hear the brilliant musicians. It gives the musicians themselves an opportunity to hear each other. But there's many of these people who have never played together before in the session. So it's unique coming together in the first place. And also then it talks back to the old, I suppose, master Kaley House type sessions where people would have been invited to a house and the master musician would have set the scene for the evening and then open the floor and invite everybody. So we're trying that for the first time this year and we hope that people will enjoy that and come along, listen to the musicians for the first hour and then take turns and join for the second. Fantastic. Well, it sounds as if there's something for everybody and for all levels of musicians and lovers of trad music. So for those who are listening this morning, Donal, where can they get more information or can they download the programme of events for the week? Yeah, we have a website, BelfastTradFest.com and on the home page there we have a downloadable programme. We have presents on all of the social media channels, the Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok. So you can go online, have a look, browse through the programme. I should mention there's a couple of other events that we have. We have a Highland Piping Competition tomorrow featuring five of the best Highland Pipers from this part of the world and we also then, as I say, finish off with the Titanic, which is a free family fun day with arts and crafts and face painting and the takes place on the Titanic slipways, where the Titanic ship entered the water for the first time at the back of the new Titanic Museum here and all that. So an amazing opportunity to come down and enjoy some wonderful position music and take part in the Caleigh dancing. Fantastic. Well, the best of luck with the festival and there's something there for everyone and continued success and the years to come as well. And many thanks for taking time out this morning, Donald, to talk to me. Karameela Maevidjain, thanks very much.