Bardis Music represents Composers & Songwriters both in Ireland and worldwide.
Click on the names below to see more information
Over the past twenty years Mark Armstrong has built a reputation as one of Ireland’s finest and most versatile musicians. His work as a conductor has brought him highly acclaimed collaborations with all of Ireland’s top ensembles and orchestras. He has conducted and orchestrated for Ireland’s top film composers such as Stephen McKeon, Shaun Davey, Bill Whelan and Ronan Hardiman. Mark is equally in demand in the recording studio and has produced albums for many of Ireland’s top singers. Mark has also composed a variety of original music for both TV and Film.
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Patsy Cavanagh writes about everyday life in a style that people identify with and his songs are in much demand by top Irish performers for many years. Patsy has recorded several albums over the years and he has also had morethan 100 covers of his songs recorded by various artists such as Daniel O’Donnell, Mick Flavin, Big Tom, Sean Wilson and Margo (just to name afew). His song ‘Home to Donegal’ which is now considered the Donegal Anthem has been covered over 60 times including covers in America, Australia and Denmark (Kisser and Sören)
Broadcaster and composer.
Jimmy Crowley from Cork has released many albums through the years. His 1990 album included original compositions such as ‘Here I Am Says Bernie Murphy’ co-written with poet Theo Dorgan, traditional arrangements such as ‘Nora Lee’ and ‘That’s The Way From Day To Day’, and covers such as ‘The End Of An Era’ composed by Kevin Beale and ‘The Mad Lady And Me’ composed by Jimmy McCarthy. Jimmy is a keen sailor with a great love of the sea and in 1994 he released an album on Dino Records called ‘My Love Is A Tall Ship’,which included the title song which was to honour the Tall Ships visit to Cork and a tribute to President Robinson called ‘Mrs President’.
Galway-born Eric stems from a very musical family and although Irish Traditional Music is his first love, many diverse musical genres have influenced the formation of his unique compositional and performance styles. He has performed throughout Europe, Scandinavia, The Greek Islands, The Caribbean Islands and in Australia, Russia, South America, Africa, Asia and the United States (including Broadway). He has been a soloist with the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra, Australian Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, Queensland Chamber Orchestra, Irish National Symphony Orchestra, RTE (Irish) Concert Orchestra and Irish Chamber Orchestra, and has performed in a plethora of Concert Halls worldwide. In addition, Eric has performed and recorded with many of Ireland’s greatest musical luminaries including other composers/performers Dr. Micheal O’Suilleabhain, Dr. Charlie Lennon, Steve Cooney and Donal Lunny. In 1992, Eric was awarded a University Scholarship to study Music at the National University of Ireland (Cork) where he later graduated with an Honours Bachelor of Music degree and a First Class Honours Master of Music degree. Eric also studied African Music in Lagos University in Ghana (West Africa) and later taught African Music, Irish Traditional Music and Musicianship at the Department of Music, University College Cork. As a musicologist, he has most recently contributed to a publication on Irish Music entitled ‘The Companion to Irish Traditional Music’ edited by Fintan Vallely (Irish Times), while he is currently working on his own music publication which will be released during 2003. In 2000, Eric was commissioned by Euro-Studio Landgraf (Germany) and North Kerry Arts, Heritage and Cultural Society (Ireland) to compose the music for Ireland’s first Dance Musical entitled To Dance on the Moon. The critically acclaimed production has to date been seen by over 1.5 million people in 15 different countries while it has also been staged for three consecutive seasons performing over 400 times at Ireland’s National Events Centre. Eric is also the composer and producer of the soundtrack for ‘To Dance on the Moon’. In 2001 Eric was also enlisted to arrange and compose music for a production entitled Spirit of Ireland. This show spectacular has enjoyed significant success in recent times in places as diverse as Dubai, Sydney, Paris, New Zealand and New York and continues to tour worldwide. In addition Eric has provided the original musical score for a children’s production entitled Legend of the Knight. This production premiered at the Dr. Yat-San Memorial Hall, Taipei, Taiwan during August 2002. As a result of the knowledge and experience he gained while working on myriad productions in the past, during 2002 Eric formed his own Production Company in an effort to produce and promote shows both for the foreign and domestic markets. Dance of Desire is the culmination of this experience. Eric is the producer, director and composer of Dance of Desire and although still in his twenty’s this production demonstrates his considerable creative talents. Eric was awarded the prestigious Sean O’Riada Memorial Award by the National University of Ireland for his outstanding knowledge of both the academic and practical nature of Irish Traditional Music.
John Duggan hails from Co. Mayo. As well as being a prolific composer, he is also a journalist, broadcaster and dramatist. He has had more that 50 cover recordings of his songs by top Irish artists including Foster andAllen, Sean Wilson, Dominic Kirwan, Daniel O’Donnell, Brendan Shine and Brian Cole. His well known compositions include ‘Roads of Kildare’, ‘Rose Of Castlerea’ and ‘The Old Threshing Mill’. John’s new song ‘The Celtic Tiger’ is Brendan Shines new single. John is currently taking a year out from MWR and is working with L’Arche in Baldoyle.
Ger Fahy is the leader and uilleann pipe player with popular Galway nine piece band Furry Village, who in the summer of 1996 had an Irish hit with the traditional song ‘She Moved Through The Fair’. Furry Village has also released original tracks such as ‘Chess Game’ and ‘Pipes of Peace’. He is a prolific composer and has had works recorded by Joannie Madden in the USA on Hearts of Space Records and Eileen Ivers on Green Linnet, and also the Boston Pops Orchestra.
John has been involved in music from his teenage years, and discovered that he had a talent for writing quality songs-in fact his first song was written about growing up in his native Garrison and entitled 'Lough Melvin`s Rocky Shores'- a song which became a big hit for the Country and Irish superstar Daniel O`Donnell
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Ireland’s leading comedian Brendan Grace also writes and sings many of the songs he records on his albums and videos. His latest album, released at Christmas 1996 ‘Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Nothing Blue’ contains some of these compositions as well as many of his popular monologues. Brendan has a huge following on the UK and USA as well as in Ireland.
Ronan Hardiman is an internationally renowned composer for Film,TV and Theatre and is based in Dublin, Ireland. He composed the scores for Michael Flatleys globally successful Lord Of The Dance, Feet Of Flames and Celtic Tiger Dance spectaculars. As well as releasing two successful solo albums, ‘Solas’ and ‘Anthem’ with Universal Records, Ronan has scored numerous Film and T.V. projects including the recent mini series ‘Neverland’ for Sky Movies/Syfy.
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Shay Healy was a folk singer in the late sixties who turned to songwriting and developing and presenting TV programmes, and novel writing. He is famous as the writer of “What’s Another Year”, the song which won the 1980 Eurovision Song Contest when it was sung by Johnny Logan. The song was No. 1 in eleven countries in Europe, including Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Holland and Spain. In recent times, three of his songs, Follow Your Dream, Yes I Really Love You and Even On Days When It Rained have been recorded by Daniel O’Donnell.
Niamh resides in a village in South Derry called Gulladuff. Niamh's roots are in Folk and Traditional Music, however in recent years Niamh has ventured into Country and Bluegrass also; not to mention composing and performing her own material. Niamh's musical influences include; Cara Dillon, Mary Black, Kate Rusby, Alison Krauss,The Dixie Chicks, Emmylou Harris, Kimmie Rhodes and Willie Nelson.
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Gerry comes from Newry in Co Down and was the composer of Ireland’s Eurovision 1998 song ‘Is Always Over Now’. Gerry considers his songwriting to be more of a passion than a job. He won the Song For Nashville contest on UTV’s Gerry Kelly Show and part of the prize was a trip to Nashville, where he made a special appearance at the Mecca of songwriters, The Bluebird Cafe. While in Music City he met up with two of the big name writers Pat Alger and Kent Blazy, who write for, among others, Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire and Trisha Yearwood. Their advice and encouragement was a great help and reinforced his commitment to composing. He has an open invitation to co-writing sessions in Nashville from Major Bob Doyle, who was Garth Brooks’ manager and now publisher, and Gerry fully intends to take up this offer
Guitarist John O'Brien had played with a few showbands including The Tumbleweeds and The Ranchers but most famously with Bagatelle where he played lead guitar. John has composed ad co-written a number of Bagatelle songs.
Award winning composer, Éanán, has been scoring and producing music professionally for well-known production companies like Microsoft Studios, 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures Television, Yahoo! Movies, RTÉ, TG4, TV3, and PBS since 2004.
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Liam Reilly is an Irish singer/songwriter and a former member of the group Bagatelle. Bagatelle were formed in 1978 by drummer Walter (Wally) McConville along with bass player Ken O'Brien and guitarist John Doyle. In 1980 while recording the band's debut album, Reilly had received and offer from Gus Dudgeon (Elton John's producer, who has since died) to begin a solo career in return for leaving the other band members to their own devices. However Reilly refused and insisted on sticking by the other members as they had done the same for him up until that point. After leaving the group in the mid-1980s he moved to Savannah, Georgia and began a solo career. In this time he recorded an album called 'Savannah Serenade' which featured much of Reilly's keyboards and vocals. In 1988 he was a finalist in the Irish heats of the Eurovision Song Contest with the song Lifeline. Reilly came back to arrive second in the event in 1990 with Somewhere in Europe. He performed this at the Eurovision Song Contest 1990 staged in Zagreb and was placed joint second out of the 22 entries. As a composer, Reilly returned to Eurovision in Rome in 1991 where his song Could it be that I'm in love, performed by Kim Jackson, was placed equal tenth.
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