“Altan remains the gold standard in Irish traditional music today”, one could read in the Irish Echo in 2005. Formed in the late eighties in the wake of the Clancy Brothers, the Chieftains and the Dubliners, this leading band has released about ten albums and toured many countries around the world. It brings together four accomplished musicians and vocalist Mairéad Ni Mhaonaigh. She sings beautifully, in English and Gaelic, a language which preserves many riches inherited from Irish traditional songs. Altan enlivens an authentic traditional music. They have built up a repertoire of ballads, jigs and lively reels from the regions where most of the members of the band were born: wild County Donegal in the North-West of Ireland, and the North of the country. The accurate and subtle arrangements contribute to the pleasure one will get from listening to their music, which is now melancholy, now merry, or even energetic like the impetuous wind which sweeps across the Celtic moors.
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