For years Áltan's Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh was asked to record a solo album, when she finally did it, for the love of music, the industry listened.

BY SEÁN P. FEENY

It was only a matter of time before the nominations started coming in when Áltan's Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh released her fantastic solo album Imeall (Edge) last year.

It was announced last week that Mairéad has been nominated for a prestigious Meteor Award in the 'Best Folk/Traditional' category, with the winner being revealed at the awards which take place at the RDS on Friday, February 19, to be aired by RTÉ on Sunday, February 21, at 9pm.

This came as a very pleasant surprise to the renowned fiddle player and singer when a friend sent her a text message while she was in France performing with Áltan.

"I couldn't believe it when I got a text from a friend of mine while we were out in Paris, congratulating me on my nomination, I hadn't even heard myself yet," she laughed.

With a limited edition run of only 3,000 copies, Imeall was a hot commodity with Áltan fans and Irish traditional music aficionados around the globe.

"I had thought of recording a solo album for quite some time and after moving home to Donegal I decided it was time to do it," said Mairéad.

"The reason why we only produced a limited amount of albums was simply because this wasn't a commercial venture, the whole purpose of recording it was for the love of music.

"Over the years there had been a lot of requests for a solo album and I really enjoyed making Imeall with Manus, but my full-time work is with Áltan."

Mairéad has attended the Meteors before and been nominated for awards with Áltan in the past, but admitted she didn't expect to be nominated for her own album.

"The album was a real novelty for me, something that Manus [Lunny] and I had worked on when ever we could and then released a limited amount of copies, so we were more than delighted when it received so much publicity in the media," said Mairéad.

The ever modest Gaoth Dobhair native said she is not expecting to walk away with the award considering the high calibre of artists that join her as nominees in the category.

"There's Sharon Shannon, Christy Moore, Kíla with Bruno Coulais and Kathleen Loughnane, all fantastic artists and I'm honoured just to be nominated," she said.

Mairéad said she is definitely going to attend the awards. "I've been to the awards before and they're always good craic and besides some of the amusing 'posing' that goes, it's a nice opportunity to catch up with friends in the industry and meet some of your heroes."

The nomination also coincides with a series of concerts Mairéad is doing, which began with a performance at the famous Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow last night.

She said: "Seamus Begley and I were performing as part of 'The Jewels of the Ocean' night, which explored the arts of Gaelic song, and featured artists from both Ireland and Scotland.

"Manus and I are actually heading back over to Glasgow next week to feature in a double bill with Tim and Molly O'Brien as part of Celtic Connections on Wednesday, January 27."

Following performances all around Ireland with Imeall co-producer Mans Lunny during February, Mairéad will tour the United States with Áltan, who celebrate their 25th anniversary this year.

"We're heading over to the States in March and would you believe, we're doing more with Áltan this first half of 2010 than we have over the past few years," said Mairéad.

The tour coincides with the US release of the group's latest album, Áltan with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra which was already launched in Japan in December while they were touring there.

"To coincide with our 25th anniversary, we decided to record a live album with the orchestra featuring brand new arrangements of some of our best known music over the years."

The band once again called in the help of well-known arranger Fiachra Trench who already arranged several Áltan songs for orchestra when the they performed with the Ulster Orchestra.

"I think Fiachra had already arranged eight of our songs back then so we got him to more songs and we ended up with 15 songs arranged for orchestra which we recorded for the album."

Following a hugely successful launch of the album in Tokyo, Japan last month and a tour of the US in March, Mairéad said Áltan are hoping to set an Irish date with the RTÉ Orchestra in August.

"As you can tell it's going to be a very busy year for us but we couldn't be more delighted with that and we're just so pleased to be getting so many opportunities to perform, we're all very much looking forward to the year ahead of us," said Mairéad.

For more go to www.mairead.ie or check out

www.altan.ie for updates