Varo are to perform a live set online from two iconic traditional pubs in Dublin, The Cobblestone, Smithfield, and Walsh’s Pub, Stoneybatter, as part of St. Patrick’s Festival 2021. Join them as they bring you back to the warm and cosy atmosphere of the Dublin 7 sessions, full of vocal harmonies and stories told from the counter.
VARO, the Dublin-based singers and fiddle players Lucie Azconaga (from France) and Consuelo Nerea Breschi (from Italy), are putting together a very special show to celebrate St. Patrick’s Festival in meaningful places, surrounded by musicians with whom they recently started collaborating with. The show will take place online, live at 9pm, Sunday 14th March, and admission is free via stpatricksfestival.ie
The night will take place in two of the most iconic places in terms of traditional music in Dublin 7, where the most memorable sessions used to take place several times a week until March 2020, and which would be considered a second home for a very large number of musicians from the folk and traditional Dublin scenes.
During the first lockdown, Varo started working on an ambitious collaboration project consisting of an album recording involving 13 of the most vibrant folk and traditional Irish acts, with songs somehow related to the experience of the lockdown. Two of these collaborators, Anna Mieke and John Francis Flynn, will perform a song with Varo on the night. Varo will also perform their own music from their debut album as well as new material, accompanied by Niamh Bury on vocals and guitar.
The show will be set in the outdoors area of The Cobblestone, and from inside Walsh’s Pub, featuring legendary bartenders and iconic figures Anto Malone, Katie Walsh, and Tomás Mulligan.
Throughout the 45minute show, Varo will bring you back to the warm and cosy atmosphere of the old Dublin 7 sessions, full of vocal harmonies and stories told from the counter.
“For many years up until the lockdown, Walsh’s and the Cobblestone were like second homes for us. We used to run the session every Wednesday in the Cobble, we’d fill in for Ye Vagabonds’ Monday sessions in Walsh’s, and the rest of the week we would join other sessions in these pubs, have a listen, play a tune, sing a song…
We miss these sessions and their inherent sense of community really badly, for us sharing music in these places was a part of our lives as much as eating or sleeping would be. So after 12 months without a single music session, when we started working on a show for St. Patrick’s Festival, it had to be in these two pubs and it couldn’t be a day to play a gig on our own (this year even less!). For us, it was all about sharing tunes, songs and stories.” Lucie of Varo said.
Consuelo adds: “It has been quite intense and emotional to work and film there, but this is not a sad show about nostalgia, it’s quite the opposite. We hope you enjoy the music and memories with us, and remember that what’s happening now is temporary and that the life and the magic we all knew and need will be back. We hope people will enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed making it for them.
Until we meet again!…”
‘Varo Sessions’ featuring Varo with guests Niamh Bury, Anna Mieke, and John Francis Flynn, will be filmed by Daragh Murphy, edited by Daragh and Anouk Greene, and sound by John ‘Spud’ Murphy. The show will be available to watch online, worldwide, for free via St. Patrick’s Festival’s channels: https://www.stpatricksfestival.ie/events/varo , at 9pm, Sunday 14th March 2021.