
The Morning Tree
Eoghan O’Shaughnessy, Consuelo Nerea Breschi
Eoghan and Consuelo met in 2011 at a folk festival up in the Alps. It was soon after Eoghan had left Dublin aged 22, to live in Florence, Italy. Consuelo had been to Ireland dozens of times and was already in love with Irish music. They quickly formed their folk-blues and jazz ensemble, ‘The Morning Tree’ that re-shapes Irish traditional music in fresh ways – following the example of Bert, whose radically different way of approaching a song and its arrangement appealed to them – and of John Renbourn, whom Eoghan had the joy of meeting and playing with at one of the Renbourn Guitar Workshops.
My Bonny Boy
A piece from Anne Briggs, performed by The Morning Tree for Bert Jansch
“We learned ‘My Bonny Boy’, from Anne Briggs”. Says Eoghan who discovered Bert’s music shortly before moving to Italy. “It summed up everything I had been looking for in a guitarist — the feeling, the technique, the repertoire, the intuition. It was like he was purposely *not* adding things to the music in a way that made you feel them even more in the delivery. And after that I was hooked. Any music I played I inevitably compared to his for artistic sensitivity and creative capacity. I missed the chance to see Bert playing live at his last concert in Dublin and I don’t think there’s anything I regret more. So, when Mike Walker nominated me to play a wildcard which offered the chance to make this little contribution, I just couldn’t pass it up.
Eoghan adds:
“This Yamaha TransAcoustic is really is a great model of a guitar. I can see why Bert played these. This one is particularly suited to finger-picking! Might have to get one for myself.”


