THE stable yard of one of Northern Ireland's most atmospheric stately homes becomes a village filled with music later this month. Clandeboye, near Bangor, Co Down, has been host to the Clandeboye Music Festival for the past 16 years and the venue holds special memories for Craigavon flautist Eimear McGeown.
It was back in 2006 that the now 34-year-old was crowned the Clandeboye Young Musician of the Year. An ever-present performer since, Eimear has lived up to her title, excelling as a musician internationally.
What sets Eimear apart as a unique artist is her effortless switch between styles and instruments – the classical flute and the Irish traditional flute. Her diverse credits include performing for royalty and presidents, a Celtic EP, performances in Lord of the Rings at London's West End, accompanying X-Factor winner Matt Cardle on the National Television Awards, performing at Glastonbury, composing for and featuring on two of Barry Douglas's Celtic albums and touring the world with all-boy English vocal group Libera.
Technically both instruments are very different, with a varying amount of keys.
"They do require different techniques. The wooden traditional flute is more similar to the tin whistle. But I've played both from a young age – I was seven when I started classic flute and nine when I started traditional flute. I always wanted to mix the two and now 90 per cent of the gigs I do, especially abroad, are both flutes," she says.
Eimear is arguably the second most famous flautist to herald from these isles – and she credits Sir James Galway with helping her on her career path.
"I had heard flute on the radio and a few nights later James Galway was playing on the television and my mum got me out of bed to check this was definitely what I wanted to play."
That weekend, Eimear received money as a present for her Holy Communion and put it towards buying her first flute.
"For my A-Levels I studied physics, maths and music. I love science and logic, but nothing would ever stop me doing music," adds Eimear, who went on to achieve a first class honours degree in music from the Trinity College of Music, London, and pursued a career as a soloist.
"My teacher at music college was in the BBC symphony orchestra and he couldn't understand why I didn't like orchestral playing. I describe it as being like tennis and badminton – they are two different things – one I love and one I don't feel comfortable with. With orchestral playing I couldn't be myself."
Eimear is grateful for the support and opportunities that Barry Douglas, musical director of the Clandeboye Festival and of chamber orchestra Camerata Ireland, have given her.
"You just can't tell where life is going to lead you. I remember playing the Tsarkovsky Piano Concerto with the Ulster Youth Orchestra as a teenager with Barry as the soloist.
"I've learnt so much much from him. Before he was a mentor, but now having done so many projects together like Celtic Orbit, albums and touring with the classical concertos, I now see him as a colleague."
Following their debut Celtic Orbit last year, Barry and Eimear, together with Scottish fiddler Chris Stout and harpist Catriona McKay, will return to Clandeboye showcasing more musical arrangement from Ireland and Brittany.
Eimear is especially looking forward to performing at the festival's Designer Fashion Show on August 17.
"I do love fashion. Even when I was a kid, my aunty used to make me dresses. My mum would put trousers on me and I would cry," laughs Eimear, who through the Festival has developed a working relationship with Glenarm designer Geraldine Connon.
"Geraldine has designed dresses for me to wear at Clandeboye and I've since wore her dresses on tour. I have a new album coming in October and I had this image in my head of a big bright red dress against a stormy background. She's making me this dress for this year's Clandeboye and I can't wait to wear it."
In both the fashion show and a lunchtime recital entitled Celtic Moments in the chapel Eimear will perform with fellow Co Armagh musician Jonny Toman, who plays guitar.
"In my youth I used to play a bluegrass gig with Jonny and his family in Lurgan. Now, we literally only see each other once a year – in Clandeboye," says Eimear, who explains that they virtually practice – choosing the repetoire and sending each other their track to practice with, before meeting to practice in person the day before the event.
In between European gigs and a three-week tour of the west coast of America, Eimear has been busy putting the finishing touches to her new, as yet unnamed, album. Ten years in the making, she describes it as "a crossover of classical, Irish, pop and film music".
While recorded entirely on Irish flute, it incorporates orchestral arrangements of classical tracks, as well as her own version of tracks as diverse as Massive Attack's Teardrop and Simon and Garfunkel's Sound of Silence.
:: Eimear McGeown will be performing at a number of concerts at this year's Clandeboye Festival, will runs form August 11 to 19 at the Clandeboye Estate, Bangor. Tickets at goh.co.uk
