Martin Doyle’s Weblog

Martin Doyle has not performed at the Royal Albert Hall, but he has been on the stage. So have his flutes…

In 2005, Sri Chinmoy offered a concert dedicated to global harmony at the Royal Albert Hall in London and Martin Doyle went to see the Master perform. One of Sri Chinmoy’s students from New York had commissioned Martin to make a flute for Sri Chinmoy and he was invited to stay behind for a private post-concert function and an opportunity to present the instrument to Sri Chinmoy personally. It was a special D flat keyed flute made of African Blackwood.

After the concert Sri Chinmoy remained on the stage while his students – several hundred in number that had come from all over the world to be at the concert – were seated in the auditorium. Martin assembled and presented the new flute to Sri Chinmoy and the Master played it for a while. He was very pleased to meet Martin and very grateful to him for the care and effort that went into creating the one-off flute. For his part, Martin was very honoured to have met Sri Chinmoy in such a way and commented that it was a unique moment in his life.

Martin Doyle watches as Sri Chinmoy tries the new flute.

The second event connecting Martin Doyle with the Royal Albert Hall was also a concert but not one that he personally attended. Two of his flutes were present though.

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Two new testimonials have just been added to Martin Doyle’s website. Both are from flute players in Japan who are involved in the Irish Traditional Music scene there. The first testimonial is from Yusuke Usuda who writes:

“I am very pleased with the two flutes Martin! I played the D flute for the set dancing with my friends last Saturday evening. I was pleasantly surprised at the excellent responses and the great capacity of the tone colours. For me, these flutes are saikou — the best!”

The second testimonial is from Isao ‘Paddy’ Moriyasu who, with his wife Masako, aka ‘Bridgit’, spend time in County Clare each year and have made two CDs of Irish traditional music. Paddy has this to say about his Martin Doyle Flutes:

“Martin is a great friend of mine. He’s not only an excellent flute maker but also (believe it or not) a master of the Japanese martial art of Aikido !! He regularly visits Japan for intensive Aikido training. I started working on a recording project called ‘The Complete Works of Turlough O’Carolan in 2007 — 7 CDs in all and have already finished recording 3 of them so far. I’ve decided to use Martin’s D and C flutes for the recording as his instruments always give me loads of inspiration and freedom. With his lovely flutes, I can explore a whole new world of Carolan music. Thanks Martin !! Looking forward to playing some tunes with you in Tokyo.”

I will add a blog post about Paddy in the near future because he is a very interesting character.

Martin Doyle’s testimonials page has been split into two parts which can be viewed using these links: Testimonials and Testimonials 2.

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08/05/2008: The home page of Martin Doyle Flutes was updated today. A Flute Information Quickfind panel was added for the convenience of our visitors. We have also tweaked the Homepage here and there and added a new image of Martin Doyle playing the flute.

Quite a number of new images have also been added to Martin Doyle’s Flickr album: Flute maker Martin Doyle.

A page regarding the care and maintenance of wooden flutes has also been added: Wooden Flute Care.

Gwenn Frin is a wooden flute player who has been assisting Martin Doyle for the past few months and learning about the art of flute making. Originally from Brittany, Gwenn fell in love with the simple system wooden flute – aka Irish flute – at an early age. The instrument has been an major part of her life ever since and has brought her to many parts if the world including Ireland, Korea and the United States.

Gwenn first performed with the Cercle Celtique de Rennes (who are coming to Cork in July of this year) where she was introduced to the traditional music and dances of Brittany before playing for the dancers themselves. Her true professional debut were with the band Beaj Iskis in the early 1990s, which toured the Fest Noz scene in Brittany for four years. Gwenn moved to Galway, Ireland in 1998 drawn to the roots of her passion. She took classes with renowned flute player Harry Bradley.

In 1999, Gwenn moved to Dublin to concentrate solely on her flute playing while completing a Higher National Diploma In Traditional Music performance (Ceoltóir) directed by flute player Paul McGrattan. This last experience led her to doing a Master’s degree in Music and Media Technologies in Trinity College, Dublin. These amazing two years transformed her musical understanding and experience and opened up her musical horizons not only to contemporary and electroacoustic music, but also to composition.

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