REVIEW Altan's "25th Anniversary" Album

Friday March 05, 2010

(From Irish Central)
By: Paul Keating

When you are 25 years on the road, no matter how good you are, you have to come up with some new ways to help widen your appeal or at least enhance what you have done that allowed you to stay in the game that long. Just go and ask Paddy Moloney of the Chieftains.

Even though, Altan — the quintessential contemporary trad band — has a live stage presence second to none and a driving sound and enchanting vocals by founder Mairead ni Mhaonaigh that have pleased audiences around the world for a quarter of a century, it helps to try a new approach.

And so a new CD has just come out, Altan: 25th Anniversary Celebration with the RTE Concert Orchestra, carrying 15 tracks of Altan favorites from various albums over the years recorded with a larger orchestra which illuminates the brilliance that has characterized their long distinguished career . . .

Their anniversary CD under license to Compass Records came about as a collaboration with Irish composer and arranger Fiachra Trench, who was aware of Altan’s music already and created orchestrations that would enable them to perform with larger classical ensembles and symphonies.

The end result was arrangements that more than emphasized the harmonious sound of their music and added more color to their repertoire. That joint venture was largely assisted with a generous grant from the Arts Council of Ireland and later funding from Foras na Gaeilge to produce the ambitious undertaking of recording with the RTE Concert Orchestra that brings out the full flavor of Altan without any dilution of its core traditional roots.

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