Lloyd MacDonald - Aires in Bloom
Fiddles, viola, cello & guitar accompaniment by Lloyd's sons Paul, Martin, Sean and Danny.

Piano - Doug MacPhee, Seamus MacNeil, Denis Carey and Mildred Leadbeater

Irish pipes & whistles by Ryan MacNeil. (note - Ryan and Seamus are both members of The Barra MacNeils)

An avid gardener and fiddler, Lloyd MacDonald recorded Aires and Blooms earlier this year at the age of 80. His first CD, it is an album of Scottish, Irish and Gaelic airs interspersed with a few hornpipes, strathspeys and reels.

Complete set listing & titles below

Samples
Related Notation
MP3s

The Ross Memorial Hospital

MP3

The Weeping Birches

MP3

The Firth House

MP3

Princess Beatrice

MP3

The Foggy Dew

MP3

Calum Road

MP3

My Home

MP3

Marry Young and Fair

MP3

Lloyd MacDonald -

Born in 1931, Lloyd was brought up on The Gannon Road, North Sydney, a district of Cape Breton that at the time hosted a hybrid of Irish, Acadian, and Scottish fiddle music &endash; a style known today as the "Northside Irish style". Lloyd's father James and his uncle Murdoch were both Northside fiddlers.

Lloyd received formal training at a very early age from "Professor" Jimmy MacDonald, in North Sydney. By the early '40s, Lloyd was performing and winning awards at the Gaelic Mods held in St. Ann's, and by his late teens was performing live on the CJCB radio on a weekly basis. At the time, Lloyd was greatly admired by other fiddlers, such as Winston Fitzgerald, for his soulful slow air playing and his renditions of tricky hornpipes and Scott Skinner tunes.

Soon after Lloyd got married (1955), he stopped playing the fiddle for about 25 years in order to start a business and raise 12 children. He started playing again in the late '70s and made his first trips to Scotland in the early 1980's. Since then has traveled extensively throughout the UK and Ireland.

Aires and Blooms - Lloyd MacDonald

links to select books andor to transcriptions/soundclips

  1. Ross Memorial Hospital (Scottish air by Phil Cunningham)
  2. Moving On (Irish air - Denis Carey)
  3. Saratoga Hornpipe / The Niagara / The Arthur Seat (J. Scott Skinner)
  4. Miss Rowan Davis (air by Phil Cunningham)
  5. Bovagalie's Plaid (air by J. Scott Skinner)
  6. The Weeping Birches (air by J. Scott Skinner)
  7. The Firth House, Mrs. Forbes of Leith (J. Scott Skinner), Princess Beatrice (W. Laybourne), Eugene Stratton (J. Scott Skinner) - hornpipes
  8. Lament (Ronan Henderson)
  9. Fred Wilson's Clog, Minnie Foster's The Ball and Pin (clogs and hornpipe from Ryan's Mammoth Collection)
  10. The Flower's of the Quern (air by J. Scott Skinner)
  11. The Foggy Dew & Over the Hills (Irish melodies)
  12. Mrs. MacDouwal Grant, Dr. Keith Aberdeen (J. Scott Skinner), Carnie's Canter (J. Scott Skinner), Clydesdale Lasses (strathspeys & reels).
  13. Captain O'Kane (Turlough O' Carolan)
  14. Slan Leis an Uaignueas (Irish air - Denis Carey)
  15. The Farewell (marching air by William Marshall)
  16. Calum Road (Donald Shaw), Minstrel's Fancy, O'Brien's Reel, Jackie Coleman's
  17. Mo Dachaidh (My Home), Marry Young and Fair (aka Jack's Gaelic Song - Mairi Bhan Og)
Other Recordings | Dr. Lloyd | Tokyo Lloyd

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