A big Galway Sessions welcome to all of you who are attending this great festival for the first time, to those of you returning and to all of you who live here! We hope you enjoy the week-long feast of music in our wonderful city…and we look forward to your return.
The Galway Sessions aims to show you what we do best, that is, great music in a friendly, warm and very real atmosphere and the programming choice for this year’s event reflects this.

Galway is very cosmopolitan but with a traditional heart, so while the majority of the weeks events have a Irish Trad and Folk feel, others are from many different traditions like, Cajun, Scottish, Gypsy, Klezmer and Bluegrass.

This range of music will be found in all kinds of venues, large and small over the course of the week. There will be big stage gigs in the Róisín Dubh, folk club gigs in the Crane Bar, dancing both ceilidh and set in Monroe’s as well as late night gigs in the Quays.
80 sessions over 8 days will take place in the above mentioned venues as well as Tigh Chóilí, Taaffe’s Bar and very much involving the new piano in Tigh Neachtain! The Galway Sessions will showcase the ‘session’ at its best, the special relationship between artist and audience in an intimate setting. This is as good as it gets for those who love to play and those who love to listen.

The Druid Theatre on Quay Lane is the venue all week for a new work by musician and singer Sean Tyrell. Sean will present ‘No go Blavatsky’ a musical journey tracing Sean’s travels through music, song and story often with hilarious consequences.

This is the fifth year of the Galway Sessions and it is a year celebrating legends in Irish music. Andy Irvine, Finbarr Dwyer, Joe Burke, Dessie O’Halloran, Freddie White and others together with over 100 musicians in the sessions will entertain us in the heartland of music in the West. Bígí Linn.

Mick Crehan
Director
The Galway Sessions.