Live recording from Danny & Aki gig in Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin, December 2013.

Unusual take on a few old standards here- De Dannan's The Log Cabin, followed by a version of Seán sa Cheo from my dad, fiddle player Dermy Diamond. Finishing up with The Eel in the Sink, which I learned from my uncle, concertina player Terry Bingham. 

The Log Cabin, reel / Seán sa Cheo, reel / The Eel in the Sink, reel

Sample track from Danny's solo album 'Fiddle Music', which will be released July 2014. 

Two reels, the first self-composed, the second traditional. Played on fiddle with open-tuned fiddle drone accompaniment.

The Old Cowhill / The Roving Bachelor

Rodney's Glory / Napoleon Crossing the Alps
Danny Diamond, fiddle
Aki, violoncello da petto
Recorded live at The Sunflower, Belfast, October 2014. 


Rodney's Glory / Napoleon Crossing the Alps (live at The Sunflower)

Two old uilleann piping jigs played in an open tuning. 

I learned the first tune from Jimmy O'Brien Moran, a  gentleman and a scholar (and a piper). Jimmy discovered it in researching the music of 19th century Galway piper Paddy Conneely. 

The second comes from the repertoire of the legendary Willie Clancy of Miltown Malbay, Co. Clare.

Máire Bheag Ní Ghibearlan / Willie's Single

A newly composed single jig followed by the brilliantly named traditional tune 'Where Is the Cat?'

Artichoke Road / Where is the Cat?

A tune I learned in my teens from Dublin fiddler Paul O'Shaughnessy followed by one of my own compositions.

Paul O'Shaughnessy's / Caldwell's Frolic

First demo of my new Elbow Room project: A playful take on the classic Irish reel 'The Dogs Among the Bushes'. Recorded warts & all in one take with live loops.
Dublin, April 2016

The Dogs Among the Bushes

Recorded live at the premiere of What to Bring When We Leave. 
Solstice Arts Centre, Navan, 23.09.17

From What To Bring When We Leave, a Solstice Arts Centre collaborative commission, produced by Belinda Quirke, culminating in a unique continuous live performance by Tom French (word) and Danny Diamond (fiddle).

Music written and played by Danny Diamond
Words written and spoken by Tom French

Where The Bog Is (live, with Tom French)

“Seldom does a musician utterly inhabit a tradition while still expressing him or herself with such originality” Siobhán Long, The Irish Times.

Introducing Elbow Room, the new solo album from Danny Diamond, fiddle player with the Irish-Nordic band Slow Moving Clouds. Elbow Room showcases ten fiddle solos, split between new compositions and solo arrangements of traditional tunes.

Pre-order: 12th October 2017 | General release: 26th October 2017

Diamond’s music draws deeply on the rich lineage of Irish traditional music for inspiration, while in parallel reaching out to find new connections with other art forms.

Poetry and contemporary dance in particular have inspired many of the new compositions on this recording. Echoes of other traditions such as American old-time and Baroque string music can also clearly be heard in Diamond’s distinctively personal and expressive playing style, as can the influence of the great Dublin fiddle player Tommie Potts.

This recording follows Diamond’s recent work with Slow Moving Clouds, which includes collaborations with Bryce Dessner and The National (Sounds from a Safe Harbour, 2017); along with creating and performing the score for Michael Keegan-Dolan’s acclaimed dance theatre piece Swan Lake / Loch na hEala (Best Production, Irish Theatre Awards 2017), which is currently touring internationally.  

Elbow Room incorporates music created and arranged for What To Bring When We Leave (2017), a collaboration with poet Tom French, commissioned by Solstice Arts Centre, Navan. It also builds on Diamond’s recent fiddle projects- his solo debut Fiddle Music (2014), his fiddle duo with Conor Caldwell NORTH (2016)- rounding off a trilogy of classic Irish fiddle albums.

This project, which was financed in part by a Deis recording award from The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon.


Contact: Danny Diamond | danny@dannydiamond.ie | +353 86 3771425

Danny Diamond - Elbow Room - 04 - Watching The Evening Grow

03 - The Twenty-One Highland / Miss Shepherd / The Flood On The Holm

Danny Diamond is a musician and researcher with a background in Irish traditional/folk music, currently based between Minneapolis, USA and Dublin, Ireland. Let Fly, Danny's new album of traditional fiddle tunes with accompaniment from multi-instrumentalist Brian Miller, launches February 2021.

Other ongong projects include: postgraduate research with The Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics at The Data Science Institute, NUI Glaway, analysing European folk music collections as part of the EU Polifonia research project; and online teaching of Irish fiddle repertoire and technique with The Center for Irish Music.

Born in Belfast into a cross-community family with deep roots in traditional music, Danny spent his formative years learning, playing and performing at festivals and sessions around Ireland. Later he was heavily involved in the Dublin music scene as a performer, archivist and sound engineer, playing a key supporting role at the inception of the ongoing folk revival in Ireland. In recent years Danny has toured internationally, creating and performing collaborative projects with writers, dance companies and visual artists.

Past work includes: fiddle player, Music Co-Ordinator and co-creator of the score for Teac Damsa’s multi award-winning dance theatre show Swan Lake /Loch na hEala (2016-); fiddle player with the bands Slow Moving Clouds (2014-2018) and Mórga (2007-2016); Field Recordings Officer with the Irish Traditional Music Archive (2006-2016).

Other notable projects include the solo recordings Fiddle Music (2014) and Elbow Room (2017), fiddle duo album NORTH (2016, with Conor Caldwell), and What To Bring When We Leave (2018), a collaborative performance project with poet Tom French, produced by Solstice Arts Centre.

Recording engineer/producer credits include: Lankum's Cold Old Fire (2014); Mórga's For the Sake of Auld Decency (2013)

Danny Diamond (fiddle)

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