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Irish Tenors

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Irish Tenors


Booking Irish Tenors

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Irish Tenors’s Biography

The career of the Irish Tenors has been one of the most unusual in contemporary music. Each of its original members had enjoyed successful solo careers before they were brought together for a concert that was envisioned as a special event at the Royal Dublin Society in Ireland in 1998. When the concert was broadcast on the American Public Broadcasting System (PBS) the following year, however, the group found itself in huge demand for concerts across the Atlantic. Riding a wave of popularity for Celtic music, the group continued to tour and record as each member continued with individual solo projects.

Of the various members of the Irish Tenors, John McDermott was the only one not born on Irish soil. In 1992 a tape of Irish standards that he made in honor of his parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary served as an audition tape for EMI-Canada Records. McDermott signed a recording contract with the company and his first album, Danny Boy, was released in Canada later that year. A series of Irish-themed albums followed throughout the 1990s.

Dr. Ronan Tynan, another original member of the Irish Tenors, took an even more unusual route to a recording career. Born around 1960 in Ireland, Tynan suffered from a congenital deformity called bilateral phocornelia, which caused his feet to turn outward. When he was a 20-year-old college student, Tynan lost both of his lower legs in a car accident. As a double amputee, he began to compete in international Paralympic games for athletes who were physically disabled. During his college athletic career, he set a total of 14 records in the long jump, shot put, javelin, and discus events. Tynan later told Billboard, ‘I was blessed with a family who encouraged me from an early age. They and the man above helped me stay forward-thinking. Tynan began to study singing in 1984 at the Cork School of Music. After winning some national vocal competitions in 1989 he began singing professionally. A series of albums on the Sony Music Ireland label followed, and Tynan hosted a television show as well. His profile was further helped when he was named Best Male Voice at the International Singing Festival in 1996.

The youngest member of the group, Anthony Kearns was born in 1971 in Kiltealy in County Wexford, Ireland. One of six children in a musical family, Kearns played the accordion and often joined his family in singing traditional Irish songs. Professional success came when Kearns was just 18 years old. Entering a national vocal competition, he was the only competitor not to have had the advantage of formal training. Nonetheless, he won the event by singing ‘The Impossible Dream’ and the Irish favorite ‘Danny Boy.’ He soon began training with vocal coach Veronica Dunne and went on to win ‘Ireland’s Search for a Tenor,’ a national vocal competition, in 1993.

With Celtic music more popular than ever in the late 1990s–as the success of the Corrs and the Titanic soundtrack demonstrated–executives at Ireland’s Point Entertainment, TV Matters, and Radius TV came up with the idea of an ‘Irish tenors’ concert that would try to duplicate the success that the Three Tenors–Luciano Pavarotti, Jose Carreras, and Placido Domingo–had recently had with their opera releases. The companies signed McDermott, Tynan, and Kearns to a date at the Royal Dublin Society concert hall. Accompanied by a 60-piece orchestra, the three sang Irish favorites such as ‘When Irish Eyes Are Smiling’ along with other traditional pop standards. The concert was a success, but it turned into a sensation when it was broadcast on the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) in March of 1999 to coincide with St. Patrick’s Day. The show was so popular that the network rebroadcast the concert numerous times during its pledge drives for donations.

McDermott was replaced Finbar Wright, who was born in Kinsdale, Ireland, in 1957. Like the other members of the group, Wright took an unusual path to a recording career. Although he had always loved music, Wright entered the priesthood in 1980 and began teaching at Farannferris College in Cork, Ireland. He left the priesthood in 1987 and his first album, Because, was an immediate success in Ireland, where it earned a platinum award for sales. A string of albums, television shows, and awards followed. As Kearns told Maclean’safter Wright agreed to join The Irish Tenors, ‘When I started singing, Finbar had the top-selling album in Ireland. You can’t go wrong by adding someone like Finbar to the group. Success breeds success.’

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