Drawing from the Well

ITMA’s annual Drawing from the Well Concert Tour will partner with RTÉ100 to celebrate the solo voice in Irish Music. Leading traditional artists Seán McKeon (uilleann pipes), Jesse Smith (fiddle) and Libby McCrohan (bouzouki) and local guests will perform material inspired by material sourced from the RTÉ and ITMA Archives.

The concert will feature a panel dialogue to discuss the solo player in Irish music, chaired by RTÉ broadcaster Aoife Nic Cormaic and ITMA Director of Creative Development Seán Potts. Nic Cormaic and Potts worked on ITMA’s groundbreaking publication on the life and music of Tommie Potts, one of the tradition’s most unique solo artists.

Performances will be recorded by RTÉ Radio 1 for future broadcasts.

Seán McKeon (uilleann pipes) Known for his virtuosic and exhilarating performances, Seán McKeon is one of Ireland’s leading traditional artists. In 2005, Seán was awarded TG4 Young Musician of the Year. McKeon and fiddler Liam O’Connor released the celebrated duet album Dublin Made Me in 2009 followed by his first solo work To The City in 2013.
Seán is a keen collaborator with exponents of many different genres having performed with orchestras, jazz musicians, world music artists, and spoken word artists throughout his musical career. Seán is also a member of the Damien Dempsey band, performing around the world with the Dublin singer/songwriter. He has performed and recorded with Elvis Costello, Hozier, Christy Moore & Amble over the past 12 months. In 2025, Seán released Salamanca, a solo recording celebrating the individual expression inherent in the art of uilleann piping. The recording has been widely critically acclaimed; with the Journal of Music heralding the album as "something unique that will itself inspire long into the future."

Jesse Smith (fiddle) was born into a musical family. His mother Donna Long has recorded and performed with, most notably, Brendan Mulvihill and the American-based band, Cherish the Ladies. His dad John sings and plays guitar. Jesse grew up immersed in the Irish music tradition having spent his childhood surrounded by many of the great Irish American musicians. He moved to Ireland in 1998 performing and recording for a period with the band Danú. He has recorded with The Tap Room Trio, Harry Bradley, Seán Gavin, Cherish the Ladies, Colm Gannon, Alan Kelly, Sharon Shannon, Emmet Gill, Enda Scahill, Tim Dennehy and Donna Long. His well received 2002 solo recording entitled Jigs and Reels appeared in Earle Hitchner’s Top Ten Albums of the Year column in US paper, The Irish Echo. He teaches at many of the Irish music summer schools and is an annual teacher at the Willie Clancy summer school. Television appearances include Geantrai, The Raw Bar, and the RTÉ programme The Reel Deal. He received an MA from Dundalk Institute of Technology for his research thesis on Sligo’s Michael Coleman. As part of ITMA’s Drawing from the Well se, Jesse explored collections by P.W. Joyce, Francis O'Neill and Martin Mulvihill to bring a selection of little known tunes to life on the fiddle.

Libby McCrohan (bouzouki) is an Irish traditional musician from Dublin. She plays a round back Greek bouzouki. Her approach to accompaniment is sensitive, subtle, and rhythmical, taking inspiration from the reg playing of uilleann pipers. Libby has performed all over Ireland and abroad and has featured on a number albums to date - including the critically- acclaimed ‘Heard a Long Gone Song’ by Lisa O’Neill (2018), ‘Not Before Time... 39 Years in the Making’ by Páraic Mac Donnchadha (2018), ‘The Devil’s Dream’ by Iarfhlaith Ó Domhnaill and Natalie Ní Chasaide (2024) and ‘The Fog is Lifting’ with Bríd Harper and Sylvain Barou.

Seán Potts was born in 1967 into a family steeped in traditional music. His father Seán was a founding member of The Chieftains while Seán’s great grandfather, Jonn Potts, father of Tommie Potts, was a renowned uilleann piper who came from South Wexford to live in Dublin in the 1890s. Seán Potts has toured internationally and performed extensively since teenage years and has played and recorded with groups and artists such as Bakerswell, the Donal Lunny Band, Na Connerys, Tommy Peoples, Kevin Glackin, Paddy Glackin Ciaran Tourish, Arty McGlynn, Paul McGrattan, Siobhan Peoples, Steve Cooney, Paul Brady, Seán Potts Snr, John Blake, Seán Keane, Daoirí Farrell, Peadar Ó Riada & Ceoltóirí Chualann, Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh and produced a solo recording of piping, Seán Potts, Traditional Music on the Uilleann Pipes, 2002. Appointed to the staff of the Irish Traditional Music Archive in December 2021, Seán headed up an Arts Council Commissioned project to produce the film ‘A Portrait of an Artist: Seán Keane’ which was screened at Scoil Samhraidh Willie Clancy 2022 and released publicly following his father Seán’s sudden death in May 2023. Seán is author of Tommie Potts: The Sorrowful and the Great, launched by ITMA in October 2025.

Aoife Nic Cormaic is a fiddle player and broadcaster from Dublin. She produces ‘Céilí House’ on RTÉ Radio 1 and presents and produces the weekly traditional music programme, The Rolling Wave. She has won numerous awards for her radio and television programmes including an IFTA, Gradam Chumarsáide an Oireachtais and a Celtic Media Festival Award in 2022. She has an MA in Traditional Music Performance from DIT and in 2013 she released her debut solo album ‘Cuas na bhFáinleog/The Hollow of the Swallows’ featuring a collection of her own newly composed tunes.