Seamus Egan

Séamus Egan reached the height of his solo career by composing the soundtrack to Edward Burns’ 1995 feature The Brothers McMullen, a recording that remained on the world music charts for four months and contained the Top Ten single “I Will Remember You,” which Sarah McLachlan later cut. Long before that breakthrough he had already established himself as a central figure in Irish traditional music, securing the All-Ireland championship four times on four separate instruments—an achievement without precedent—and performing in a trio alongside Mick Moloney and Eugene O’Donnell, in the ensemble Green Fields of America, and later in the band Solas, while also maintaining an active solo profile. Additional collaborations took him into sessions with Eileen Ivers, John Doyle, African percussionist Kimati Dinizulu, and, on one hip-hop track, Vernon Reid of Living Colour.

His introduction to traditional music occurred at age three when his parents and five siblings relocated to the village of Foxford in County Mayo. There, around six or seven, he began lessons with button accordionist Martin Donaghue. Exposure to a television broadcast featuring flutists Matt Molloy and James Galway, followed by a radio program devoted to banjo player Matt Moloney, broadened his instrumental interests; within a short period he was proficient enough to win All-Ireland titles on both flute and whistle. After the family returned to the United States and settled in Philadelphia in 1980, Egan encountered Moloney, who had also moved to the city, and received informal banjo instruction from him. Two years later Egan traveled once more to Ireland and captured All-Ireland honors on banjo and mandolin.

In his mid-teens he stepped away from competition and began performing professionally with his sisters Siobhan and Rory. Soon afterward he accepted an invitation to join the trio that included Moloney and O’Donnell, which released the album 3 Way Street in 1993. Following the appearance of his first solo effort, Traditional Music of Ireland, Egan became a member of Green Fields of America, the large ensemble directed by Moloney that also featured Robbie O’Connell, Liz Carroll, Eileen Ivers, Jerry O’Sullivan, and Jimmy Keane; the group issued Live in America in 1989.

Although Egan spent time in Boston while attending Boston College, New York remained his primary residence. In the early 1990s he assembled the Chanting House there with Ivers, Doyle, and Susan McKeown. He continued releasing solo recordings, issuing his second album, A Week in January, in 1990. When the Chanting House dissolved without having recorded, Egan still joined Ivers, Doyle, and Kimati Dinizulu for the track “Ships Are Sailing” on Ivers’ Wild Blue. He also rejoined Moloney and O’Donnell from time to time, including a performance at Bonnie Raitt’s wedding.

Egan’s involvement with The Brothers McMullen began after producer Edward Burns heard him during the tour The Young Turks of the Banjo. Originally a modest production, the film was selected for the Sundance Film Festival, where it earned a Grand Jury prize, and was subsequently acquired by 20th Century Fox for wider distribution. Egan’s music later appeared in the PBS documentary Out of Ireland.

His third solo album, When Juniper Sleeps, arrived in 1996 and introduced his work on nylon-string guitar. Around the same period he helped form the traditional group Solas, whose lineup also comprised fiddler Winifred Horan, accordionist John Williams, guitarist John Doyle, and vocalist Karen Casey. Solas released its self-titled debut in 1996 and continued with Sunny Spells & Scattered Showers (1997), Words That Remain (1998), Hour Before Dawn (2000), Edge of Silence (2002), Another Day (2003), Waiting for an Echo (2005), For Love and Laughter (2008), and The Turning Tide (2010). In the same years Egan issued the solo recording In Your Ear in 1998 and served as composer for Maureen Foley’s 2004 independent film American Wake.