The beating heart of Irish music is, as it has been for centuries, the session. These informal music gatherings, where any and all can gather to play traditional tunes, have kept Irish music a social form at a time when most other folk styles exist almost exclusively on the professional concert stage, or in the privacy of people's homes. The Irish even have a word for the special fun of people sharing music together, craic.

More successfully than any band working today, Danú has transferred the unique social energy and convivial passion, the lively craic, of the session to the concert stage. Their wild spontaneity and breathtaking musical power have made them arguably the most in-demand touring band to emerge from Ireland in the past decade. The Boston Globe says "Danú is the Next Big Thing in Celtic music."

With the release of their fiery and gorgeous new CD, The Road Less Travelled, Danú welcomes back founding guitarist Donal Clancy, and introduces stunning new vocalist Muireen Nic Amhlaoibh, from the Irish-speaking Aran Islands. Filling out the current ensemble are button accordionist Brendan McCarthy and bodhrán player-piper Donnchadh Gough, both from Waterford; flutist Tom Doorley and his bouzouki-fiddle playing brother Eamon Doorley of Dublin; and Donegal fiddler Oisín MacAuley.

The new line-up promises to continue a career rise that is already the talk of the Celtic world. In 1999, Danú was named Best Overall Traditional Act by Irish Music Magazine. In 2002 BBC's vaunted Folk Music Awards named them the "best band of the year," and The Irish Herald dubbed Danú "the finest traditional band in Ireland."

"The essence of that spontaneity you get jamming away at a really good session," says Tom Doorley, "that is where the heart of Danú comes from. We want to just consolidate that more, anchor down the sound into enough of an arrangement for a concert, and yet still have that energy of it being a little bit loose, so you can create more of a spark on stage, and each night becomes a different concert from the one before."

The extent of their international success still comes as a bit of a surprise to the musicians themselves. After all, Danú was never intended to be a band at all. Their story plays like some merry old folk tale, about a few lads off on a summertime lark that turned into a life-transforming adventure. In 1995, a few long-time friends and session mates from County Waterford, including McCarthy and Clancy (son of the world-famous Clancy Brother Liam), heard they could go to the Lorient Inter-Celtic festival in Brittany if they appeared as a band.

"The way we looked at it," McCarthy recalls now, "we were just going for a bit of a laugh; we weren't thinking about a band at all. But we needed to have a Celtic or Irish name to go as a group, so we picked Danú , after the mother of the ancient Irish gods."

Along their way, just as it would go in a folk tale, they chanced to spend the night in Dublin, where they immediately made their way to the nearest session. There, they met the Doorley brothers, Tom and Eamon. They all hit it off so well, musically and personally, that the Waterford lads promised if they were ever asked back to Lorient, they would bring the Doorleys along. Well, of course, they were invited back, and they did bring the Doorleys. That second year, everyone began to notice that something special was happening on stage. The crowd loved them, and they won the new band competition. McCarthy says, "We were still just basically having a session on stage, but we kind of said, like, we must be doing okay with this Danú thing." Okay indeed. They were soon touring the world, the most highly touted Celtic band to emerge since Solas. But don't let their swashbuckling stage energy fool you into thinking this band is not deadly serious when it comes to the music they love.

Donal Clancy is among the most in-demand guitarists anywhere in Celtic music. He has been a member of two of the most sophisticated and tightly arranged ensembles in Irish music history, the Eileen Ivers Band and Solas. He loves that approach to the music, but is equally passionate about the pure, improvisatory tack that Danú takes. And if anyone assumes there is anything slapped together about it, he begs to differ.

"Anybody who would think that would be totally off the mark," Clancy says with a knowing chuckle. "When I joined up again, I really experienced that. It took me a long time to remember how much subtle arrangement is actually in there. We sometimes put new tunes in just to keep it fresh, and make sure nobody gets too tied down to really strict arrangement. There's more scope for improvising then. But I don't really mind if people think we're just a jam band, because that's what we're aiming for - to put caution to the wind and just play, and see where it goes.
But there's a lot of thought that goes into doing that on the concert stage night after night."

Just listen to the bold, bracing sound of McCarthy's accordion and McAuley's fiddle, which Earle Hitchner of the Irish Echo calls "one of the most potent one-two punches in Irish traditional music today." After feeling the raw, intense power of that, listen to the lapping counter melodies and dark-chocolate harmony lines the lads swirl around Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh's dusky vocals on Richard Thompson's Fairport Convention classic "Farewell, Farewell," and the wrenching American labourer's lament, "Peg and Awl."

Nic Amhlaoibh replaces singer Ciaran O Gealbhain, and is every bit as promising a find. Her whisper-pretty mezzo may remind some of a young Dolores Keane, though her high sustains shimmer with the soprano purity of Mary Black or Cathie Ryan.

The first woman to perform with Danú, she grew up on the Aran Islands and the west coast of Kerry, both regions where Irish is still spoken. It was her first language, as might be guessed by her hushed, naturalistic treatment of the Irish ballad "Raitachas na Tairngreacht." She was enchanted by the playful stage passions of Danú when she first heard them in the late '90s. She assumed, as so many fans do, that they were just cavorting away up there. Now that she's worked with the band, she's singing a slightly different tune.

"I'd never seen anything like them on stage before; all I'd seen were older bands, not that much fun on stage. It's a bit more difficult for me to see that now, the way I did when I first heard them, because I've seen how much work goes into making sure that spontaneous energy happens every night. You can't just go up and jam away, you know; you do have to have a certain plan."

Tom Doorley says of her, "She's been with us the last four months, and it's as if she's always been there. It's amazing how she's able to put up with six other fellows. And she's an amazing singer, got great strength and control." Then he adds, in what must surely be the supreme compliment from one Danú member to another, "And she gives it everything she has."

For US bookings please visit the Fleming & Associates web site.