Brendan Mulvihill

Master fiddler and legendary Irish musician, Brendan Mulvihill was born to Irish parents in Northampton, England. He moved with his family to New York in the 1960s where he learned music from masters of Irish music that passed through New York, starting with his own father National Heritage Fellow, Martin Mulvihill of County Limerick. Brendan, an All-Ireland fiddler, continued learning from masters of music as he traveled on his own and became an internationally known Irish musician, performing, teaching Irish music and leading sessions in the Washington DC area for decades. One description of him is that Brendan has the “heritage, background and training” of a fiddler “but full, firm tone, exquisite bow work and subtle, sensitive musicianship that bear all the hallmarks of a classical violinist.” Micheál Ó Súilleabháin referred to Brendan as “a rare genius” saying “Brendan’s music displays a sweetness of tone matched by an intuitive sense of variation.” In support of a nomination for the U.S. National Heritage Fellowship Award, numerous musicians (of all ages) from across the U.S., Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom signed their names to letters of support offering their own personal experiences with Brendan that demonstrate his merit. After 47 years in the Washington D.C. area, with only an Irish passport, having retained his Irish citizenship, Brendan has returned home to County Limerick. Brendan now lives on the same farm where his father was born and where his father listened to music from Brendan’s grandparents.

Although there are recordings from his early music career, his recent work is intended to share music with those interested in learning more about the music. In 2013, he published “Brendan Mulvihill’s Irish Scroll: Volume One” and in 2021, “Brendan Mulvihill’s Irish Scroll: Volume Two.” Each volume is a tune book with a CD, with a combined 320 tunes in the two volumes and 50 tunes on the two CDs. The books contain some of Brendan’s compositions as well as his variations of some old traditional tunes. The tunes come from Brendan’s personal manuscripts of tunes that he collected over the years from Irish music legends; many tunes are uncommon or nearly forgotten tunes. In 2018, Brendan released a solo CD, The Journey, of live recordings of performances in a small old church in Virginia. In 2023, Brendan released the full collection of his father’s manuscripts – contained in four volumes that include over 2300 tunes. Martin Mulvihill’s Collection of Irish Traditional Music is the largest collection of written Irish traditional music ever printed and it contains more tunes written after 1920s than any other traditional Irish music collection.