What was once an ideological idea from a Belfast-born musician, who then approached a fellow Lisnaskea musician and studio owner has evolved into something that neither instigator could ever have envisaged.
For only last weekend, the Triskell Celtic festival in Trieste, Italy, was the latest host to welcome Erne and The Erne Rising Project, a Fermanagh bred traditional and now, world music concept band.
At approximately 10.00pm on Saturday night the nine musicians and dancers brought the 'sky' down on nearly 6,000 festival goers at this prestigious event.
Erne Rising is rapidly and undoubtedly making a name for itself both here and on a much larger global scale.
The talented group made their debut last February in Lisnaskea to an overflowing crowd.
Since then however, they have played all over - in theatres and festivals in Ireland, Poland, France and of course Italy. Radio stations and festival organisers from as far away as the US and Australia are also continuing to register an overwhelming interest in the project's developments.
The innovative traditional musical project was devised and created in Red Lagoon Studios, Monea, by Lisnaskea's Ian Smith, and Belfast-born Gerry O Donnell.
"Having worked together on a couple of other albums in the studio," Ian explains, "we agreed that we should revise the old approach of recording traditional music and Gerry, having spent a lot of time playing and living in Fermanagh, suggested we compose something new and approach as many local musicians as possible to engage in the experiment".
And that they did, for the illustrious line-up includes Monea's Jim McGrath on accordion and melody,
Pat McManus from Teemore on fiddle and guitar and Catherine Dunne from Tempo on fiddle, viola, and accordion.
"We then added Scottish influenced musicians such as Ian Marshall from Enniskillen on side drums and Robert Watt, Maghera on lowland, border and bagpipes, which greatly widened the soundscape. "Then Gerry by chance happened upon an old friend, David Hopkins, an exceptional percussionist living in Brittany, France. And Hopi as he's known, in turn introduced us to bass player extraordinaire Yann Honore also from Brittany".
The touring line up was complete when the band was joined by Ian's niece, Elaine Murphy, from Newcastle, Co. Down who performs the vocals, flute and whistle.
"Elaine has one of those unique voices that you cannot pigeon hole so to speak. She sings anything from R&B to soul through to country and traditional. Her unique vocal tone just simply makes people shut up and listen!"
This ensemble was further enhanced by dancers, Bridin McElroy from the Knocks, and her dancing partner, Fintan Shevlin from Fivemiletown.
"It became apparent very quickly that we were dealing with two very experienced choreographers here, and we left the interpretation of our music entirely up to them. What they came up with was truly awesome but they keep working on it, always adapting and perfecting."
Such is the growing success of Erne Rising, that increasingly, both Ian and Gerry are becoming consultants for local schools and other educational establishments.
"As teachers we are making students aware of our own experiences with the industry," Ian adds. "Both positive and negative - for example, the unseen pitfalls that can arise when approaching local bodies for funding and Arts advice and I personally, especially as part of my studio workshops, feel a duty to make them fully aware of all our experiences so far in this great experiment so they can learn from it.
"The reason we in Erne Rising do what we do is because we want to, we love it, and we can."
