Lorenzo Zampetti & Cathal McConnell

Born: 18th july 1975 in Ancona, Italy

I begun studying the classical flute when I was 13 years old; when I was 17 I fell in love with a girl of my same age and we started listening to the Pogues. Then she left me, my passion for irish traditional music was getting stronger, but how can you learn that type of music if you live in a town in the central Italy, with no teachers, records and flutes? I had to wait a couple of years...

I bought a traditional irish flute only in aug 1998, when I was in Ireland on holiday. I found it at Walton's Music Shop, in Dublin, but now I am not so happy with it. When you buy a traditional flute and want to understand its value, you have to know how to play it, it's not enough to be able to play the classical flute. My flute was made by Tom Ganley, of co. Roscommon. My first teacher of irish traditional music has been Eamonn De Barra, aged 19: he looks like an heavy-metal guitar player but is great at playing the traditional flute.

Now am waiting for a flute from Terry McGee, a Pratten's Perfected one ... should arrive in August or September!

The Bothy Band is perhaps the band who is nearest to my way of thinking of irish music, expecially the playing of Paddy Keenan on the pipes and Matt Molloy on the flute, even if Molloy's playing is not what I am looking at for my personal style. I enjoy him very much when plays slow tunes such as The Maids of Mitchellstown and Idir Deighric 'Gus Breo' (the last one is in his solo cd Heathery Breeze).

Of Altan I really love the songs, expecially the haunting The Flower of Magherally ( the album is The Red Crow) : the voice of Mairéad is wonderful. I love also the way that Frankie Kennedy used to play the flute, but his death had left all us without a great example to follow. (www.altan.ie/frankie.html )

Micheal McGoldrick, from Manchester, plays the flute, the union pipes and the tin whistle. His solo album, Morning Rory, is wonderful. He has also played with Toss the feathers and Flook. The first band (TTF) is the first band of irish music I have listened to, they played a Celtic Rock that was very good, but they are not so famous ... He now plays with Capercaille.

are the reels and the slip jigs ( jigs played in 9/8), and am not so fond in polkas and hornpipes, but there are also some of them who do I like as The Pride of Petravore, a hornpipe!

Slip Jigs: The Butterfly, Dusty Miller, Another Jig Will Do, The Kid on The Mountain, Give Us A Drink Of Water, My Mind Will Never Be Easy, A fig for a kiss.

Reels: Joe Cooley's, Over The Moore To Maggie, Roscommon, Seamus Egan's, Maid of Mount Cisco, The Golden Keyboard and many others!

Jigs: Con Cassidy's, The Frieze Breeches, Garrett Barry's, Lannigan's Ball, etc ...

Waltz: Tommy Bhetty's, Waltz From Orsa, Sharon Eubank's.

If you want to have a huge source of irish traditional music, let's visit Henrik Norbeck's abc page home1.swipnet.se/~w-11382/abc.htm more than 1000 tunes of irish traditional music!

I had played in a band in Milan, named Elfi delle Montagne, Elf of the Mountains in english, not a great name but wasn't my choice: I enter the group later! We have played in a lot of festivals and sessions and we were quite good: fiddle, keyboard, bodhrán, button accordion, voice and flute (that was me!) . (thanks to my friend Jeff Lindqvist for explaining me the differences between the box (a.k.a. button accordion) and the accordion! let's visit his great homepage at Jeff Lindqvist's Home Page )

Now I play with the "Wild Rovers" in Ancona.

Back to my home page

Cathal McConnell

He is a wonderful person before being a great flutist. He comes from co. Fermanagh in Northern Ireland, a county famous for its flute tradition. In his family the flute players goes back 4 generations.

fabio scanzani

A fiddler from Rome

luigi fazzo

A great guitar player from Milan

carlo galantini

He plays the fiddle, looks like an irish, plays like an irish but he comes from Milan.