Draperstown singer Celine Murphy to launch solo career in Cornstore

The 28-year-old trained classical pianist has always had a passion for music, she is constantly songwriting and has featured previously in Derry singer Paddy Nash’s band, as well as other folk bands.

But as she explained, it took a while before she decided to put her work out there as a solo artist.

“This is the first time I’ve decided to start sharing my own music,” she said.

“I had been writing but hadn’t been playing it for anyone except my own enjoyment. I had a passion for it for years and then I just decided to go for it.

“I have loads of material, it’s about promoting that and getting it out for people to hear it. I never joined social media until last month, I always had an aversion to social media, it was a kind of a running joke with my friends and family.

“I suppose it’s just a balance, not all singer-songwriters are all outgoing extroverts, it’s just about being comfortable and saying ‘this is me’.”

Last month she released ‘Kind to Me’, recorded by Lisburn producer, Michael Mormecha of Mojo Fury fame.

“I went to start recording with Mike but with the view to having other singers, I thought I really want to get my music out there and maybe what I could do is explore recording other artists, other singers, and that’s why I went down and met Mike.

“But It just didn’t feel right, I just kept coming back to the conclusion that I needed to do it myself. I wanted to do it myself and I just needed to take that wee leap of faith.”

The song is a hauntingly sad song with a beautiful mix of piano and strings and Celine’s perfect vocals.

Her sound has progressed through her classical training with influences of pop, Irish and folk.

“I don’t know how important it is to put a name on it either, I suppose it just comes from a really natural progression over many many years, people say they don’t know where to put it and that’s a good thing,” Celine added.

“My music started from a really young age, I actually have a twin sister, called Angela and Angela and I, we both started learning music at the same age, only she learned the violin and I learned piano.

“I think throughout my teen years, that was probably where my sound developed, finding my own style and playing piano and Angela playing violin and I started to really love that string and piano sound with vocal harmonies.”

Celine said she is in the unique position of having a lot of material to choose from as she has spent so much time songwriting.

She said: “I can tell you there are songs that aren’t quite as sad as that, there are songs that are more up tempo, but they are really personal stories and all of them are based on my own life experiences. They are all really honest.”

The video for Kind to Me was put together at the Glasgowbury Cornstore hub, by filmmaker Tiarnan Larkin and dancer Caitríona Groogan, both from Draperstown.

“Paddy and Stella [Glasgow] got a video meeting together for us all, there was going to be some of the students from the Cornstore there learning and watching it being made,seeing how it was done to open it up as a learning opportunity for young people,” Celine explained.

“I went on to do the video with the dancer Caitríona, that was a total dream for me. I always had in my minds eye that it would have a female dancer but you don’t think that you’ll be able to get a dancer and make such a beautiful video with your first single.

“She was so beautiful and her dance was so incredible. I just got really lucky that three of us bonded so well together and Caitríona got the emotion of that song, she got it straight away.”

Ciaran Lavery & Marc O’Reilly with support from Celine Murphy, Saturday 19 September, in Glasgowbury’s Cornstore.