Tradition Now – NCH – Preview
VARO + special guests live from Tradition Now | National Concert Hall

With the success of the James Vincent McMorrow gig last week, live gigs can only be a few weeks/ months away. In the meantime, we’ll have to make do with a few more online experiences! One of the best this weekend is the Tradition Now festival, and in particular, the gig on Sunday evening with Varo and guests. They are soon to release an album of collaborations and the gig on Sunday will be a preview of what you can look forward to, with collaborations with Slow Moving Clouds, John Francis Flynn and more.

Tickets are 12 euro and are available here.

Full details on the Tradition Now Festival can be found here.

VARO are singers and fiddle players Lucie Azconaga (from France) and Consuelo Nerea Breschi (from Italy) who perform traditional songs and tunes with arrangement influences from the Folk, Baroque and Classical traditions, weaving around the melodies with harmonies, drones and countermelody. The duo met in 2015 having moved to Dublin to pursue their love for Irish traditional music, and immediately started a fruitful collaboration. They travelled to Ireland along different musical paths, Lucie from jazz, classical music, and French folk, Consuelo from Irish trad, folk, and world music.

Following the success of their self-titled debut album released in January last year, VARO are preparing to launch an ambitious collaboration project later in 2021, which will see the release of a new album featuring Varo alongside thirteen of Ireland’s most exciting and exceptionally talented traditional and folk musicians on the scene: Ian Lynch (Lankum), Anna Mieke, Junior Brother, Landless, John Francis Flynn, Niamh Bury, Branwen, Slow Moving Clouds, Inni-K, Alfi, Cormac
Mac Diarmada (Lankum) & Ruth Clinton, Lemoncello.

For this album, Varo have curated a selection of traditional songs, which each relate to themes arising out of the COVID19 lockdown: loneliness, isolation, relationships, being away from your family or home,
the importance of friends, mental health, anti-racism, and changes in society.