Éamonn Coyne (www.eamonncoyne.com), who now lives in Edinburgh, is originally from Ireland (Dublin/Roscommon). His debut solo album ‘Through the Round Window’, on Compass Records, was released in late 2002. It is a work of banjo music and more, featuring Éamonn on tenor banjo, mandolin, tenor guitar, 6-string guitar and tenor national steel guitar. Accompanying him on the album are a host of luminaries of the Irish music scene and beyond including: Grammy Award winner Alison Brown, 5-string banjo from California via Nashville, Dermot Byrne (accordion and melodeon) and Ciarán Curran (bouzouki) both of Altan, Kevin Doherty (guitar and vocals) of Four Men and a Dog, Michael McGoldrick (flute) of Capercaille & the Mark Knopfler Band, and Tom Morrow (fiddle) of Dervish. fRoots called it “utterly stunning” and The Irish Times reported, “…this album comes as no surprise either in its virtuosity or eclecticism”.
Coyne has also performed and recorded with a vast array of people including Siobhán and Tommy Peoples, The Wrigley Sisters (CDs ‘Huldreland’, ‘Mither o’ the Sea’ and ‘Idiom’), Eileen Ivers (Ex Riverdance), Sharon Shannon, piper Allan MacDonald, Jonny Hardie and Gavin Marwick (CD ‘The Blue Lamp’), Bèla Fleck, Jerry Douglas, Sinéad O’Connor, Tim O’Brien, and Russell’s House (CD ‘Russell’s House’). Éamonn currently tours and records with Scottish ‘international’ band Salsa Celtica (CDs ‘El Agua de la Vida’, ‘El Camino’, ‘En Vivo en el Norte’ and 2014’s ‘The Tall Islands’). He also plays with supergroup Treacherous Orchestra whose debut album ‘Origins’ was released to critical acclaim in 2012. ‘Grind’, the follow-up, was nominated and short-listed for the Scotland Album of the Year 2015 awards and won best album in the 2015 Scottish Folk Awards.
He also regularly tours with multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Kris Drever, and their CD ‘Honk Toot Suite’, was released in Jan 2007, again on Compass Records. Songlines described it as “a breath of fresh air” with its “mutually attuned musicianship of the first order” and “its immense yet ultra-supple sophistication”. The duo’s most recent album ‘Storymap’, released in 2013 on Reveal Records, has also received widespread critical acclaim including BBC Music Magazine’s Album of the Month in Sept 2013 with a five star review. Two EPs (released in 2012 & 2014) make up the full collection.