The Band

Sylvain Barou - Flutes and Uileann Pipes

Sylvain Barou, from Brittany is considered to be one of the greatest flute players of his generation. Playing mainly Irish and Breton music, Sylvain has worked with Donal Lunny, Liz Carrol, John Doyle, Paddy Glackin within Irish music and has worked with Breton greats such as David Pasquet, Guichen, Denez Prigent, Jacques Pellen-Celtic Procession, Gildas & JB Boclé, Dan Ar Braz, Yvan Cassar and Hamon Martin Quintet.
In Brittany Sylvain is probably the busiest musician you can find and is involved in many ground breaking musical projects. Watch out for the release of his solo album in 2012.

Pádraig Rynne - Concertina

Pádraig Rynne is a concertina player and composer from Caherea, in Co. Clare. With a number of
All-ireland titles to his name Pádraig has been touring such places as Australia, North America, The Middle East and Europe since the age of 14 and has made his name as one of Irish music's most dynamic and expressive players.
Pádraig is involved in a number of different collaborations including The Soma Band with John McSherry, a trio with Dónal Lunny and Footura with Tyler Duncan.

Tóla Custy - Fiddle

Tóla is one of the most famous performers, composers and recording artists that Irish music has to offer. Tóla recorded his first solo album in 1994. This album received rave reviews worldwide. In 1995 Tóla, along with Pat Marsh, Diarmaid and Donnacha Moynihan formed the well known band "Calico" who recorded two albums and became very popular in the Irish music world. He can be found guesting with many well known Irish acts in the Irish music scene at present.

Paul McSherry - Guitar

A member of the famous McSherry family from Belfast, it's no surprise that Paul has been credited with
re-inventing Irish music on the guitar.
A founding member of Tamalin and Grianan, Paul has also recorded and played with Déanta, Cara Dillon, Niamh Parsons, Cormac Breathnach, Liam O Flynn, The Donal Lunny Band, At First Light, and the list goes on.
His imagination with creating chords as well as having one of the best rhythym hands in Irish music on guitar have firmly established Paul as one of the all time greats!

Karol Lynch - Bouzouki

Clare native Karol is the youngest member of the band but shows music maturity way beyond his years. His rhythmic style adds flair and energy to the band while his counter melodies leave audiences breathless.
Karol is a well known banjo player also and is credited on a number of albums. Most recently he has been performing as part of the banjo project "Banjaxed" which has a number of the best known banjo players collectively performing on one stage.
Karol is the owner of popular recording studio Dún na hInse (where the band recorded their last album) and is credited as recording engineer on a number of well known albums.

About Guidewires

• Guidewires: With their high-energy performances, breathtaking arrangements and their infectious melodies, its no wonder that this band are being described as "The freshest sound in Irish music".

  With four members coming from Ireland and one from Brittany it is inevitable their mix of music is not just Irish but also Breton, Middle Eastern, Galician and newly composed.

  Guidewires have an all-star line up with Irish music's most famous concertina player Pádraig Rynne, Breton music's hottest name Sylvain Barou on Flute, one of Ireland's most recognisable names Tóla Custy on fiddle, top producer and performer Paul McSherry on guitar and one of the fastest growing stars in Irish music, Karol Lynch on Bouzouki.

  All members have had renowned fame individually within music. Their love and passion of this music has brought them together to create this unique and groundbreaking band "Guidewires". The bands debut album "Live" was released in Sept '09 and is described by The Irish Times as "A spectacular, multicoloured debut". This album gained the band the best of respect in the world Music scene and catapulted them to the top of a list of popular bands to emerge from Ireland and Brittany.

  Guidewires new album entitled "ll" is their second album and a studio recording which was released in April 2011. The band have invited some of their friends to guest on the album including Triona Ni Domhnaill (vocals and keyboards). Alain Genty from famous Breton band Gwerz (bass), Erwan Hammon (bombarde) from The Hamon Martin Quintet and the amazing American drummer Mike Shimmin from the band Millish.

• A bit of history on the band
• In 2007 at a festival in Belgium Pádraig, Tóla and Paul were performing as a trio while Sylvain was performing with his band Comas. The two groups performed together as part of the finale and the four lads got talking about their similar musical interests. There was an immediate and obvious attraction to the four lads working together.
  
  Contact was kept between the four guys and the following year they decided to start a new project with good friend Karol Lynch on Bouzouki. This project became known as Guidewires after a number of festival appearances they decided to record their first cd entitled "live".
  
  In 2009 Guidewires booked the venue Glór in Ennis, Co. Clare for a concert and recorded this which is the music you hear on the " live" cd. The concert and recording was engineered by Marco Migliari from Realworld studios. The album was released in early 2009 and that year saw the band become very busy headlining alot of Europes best known festivals as well as performing in New York.

• 2009 saw the band perform at Festival de Cornouaille (video clip below) which was used to record the "live" DVD. Later that year the band made TV performances on RTE's "The View", BBC's Blas Ceoil and BBC alba's " Horo Gheallaidh as well as performances at "The Galway Arts Festival", "The Ballyshannon Folk Festival", "The Copenhagen Irish Festival", "Festival Irlandays" and many more very popular festivals.

  2010 became an even busier period for the band. It started with a sold out concert in The Glasgow Concert Halls in January as part of Celtic Connections. July brought another special night when the band performed at The Festival Of World Cultures in Dublin and Liam O Maonlai (The Hot House Flowers) guested with them. Video clip below. Guidewires took time out towards the end of 2010 to book in to Ceol Na hInse recording studios to start work on their second album "ll".
• 2011 is already showing to be the bands busiest year to date. Starting with A concert in Switzerland in January and
  then many huge gigs as the year continues where they are headlining some of Europes most famous festivals. such as Festival Irlandays (Paris), Festival Cornuaille (Brittany), Wimborne Folk Festival (UK),The Irish Festival of Oulu (Finland) and Dranouter Folk Festival (Belgium).
  The band have just released their second album "ll" to an amazing response from both the media and the public. A very successful Irish tour took place to launch the album in April.
  
  There are future plans of collaborations with a few other popular artists as well as plenty more work on the road with work ongoing to bring the band to Australia in 2012 as well as some more unusual destinations.
  
  The band have recently had "Vicki's World" from the Live cd chosen on a cd to commemorate the historical visit of American president Barack Obama to Ireland in May 2011.
  
  
  Guidewires headlining Festival De Cornuaille in July 2011. They were joined on stage by world famous musician Dónal Lunny. Local press described the concert as "one of the best the fetival had seen".


• Full list of Tour Dates