#CLMF24: Wallis Bird & guest Iona
Sat 28 Sep 2024
7pm
€25
Coughlans Live Music Festival '24.
Wallis Bird & guest Iona
Wallis Bird has been enrapturing audiences for over a decade, playing over 1000 shows in that time worldwide. She has won multiple international awards including two Irish Meteor Awards, and has also received a nomination for the Irish Choice Music Prize. Her irrepressible energy on stage is one of her trademarks; even the Irish Times once noted it could ‘kickstart an entire economy’
On 27th May 2022, Wallis released her seventh studio album Hands - her most personal and experimental to date. Also known as NINE AND A HALF SONGS FOR NINE AND A HALF FINGERS – HANDS finds Bird turning the spotlight onto herself, raising issues that are sometimes hard to confront. Among these are issues of trust, alcohol abuse, stagnation, self-censorship and self-improvement, some addressed through personal recollections of crucial moments accumulated over the last two years. Each, however, is delivered by a voice uncommonly blessed with joy, ingenuity and empathy. Some will understand HANDS' significance; they’ll
have seen Wallis strumming an upside-down, right-handed guitar: “As a child I fell under a lawnmower and cut all my fingers off,” Bird states simply. “Four were reconnected. One was lost. This led me to relearn how to hold things, and, when the time came, to play the guitar differently". Having spent much of her life trying to exist despite its restrictions, she’s reached a point where she recognises that it's always been vital to her lived reality.
Since the release of HANDS, Wallis has toured throughout Europe, the USA and the UK earning rave reviews and even receiving a nomination for Ireland’s legendary music magazine Hot Press’ musician of the year. 2023 has seen Wallis jump from her one woman shows of her 2019 album “Woman” to special big band concerts. Wallis was invited to perform alongside several Irish Orchestras and big bands for special shows around Ireland’s treasured national theatres. Meanwhile, she has joined forces with German classical quintet Spark to create their concert series Visions of Venus, showcasing 1000 years of female music, from Schumann to Björk.
