Uploaded November 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
Martin Hayes, virtuosic Irish fiddler, and one of the most significant talents in Irish traditional music will return to Australia February 2026. Ahead of his Australian tour along with guitarist Kyle Sanna, acclaimed Irish fiddler/composer Martin Hayes chatted with Australian Musician’s Greg Phillips
For Irish fiddle master Martin Hayes, music has never been an academic pursuit or a structured discipline. It has always been something lived, absorbed and felt. Raised in a deeply musical family in East County Clare, he learned traditional music “environmentally,” he says, not through theory or formal training, but through the natural osmosis of sound that shaped his childhood. That foundation continues to define the essence of Hayes' playing today, which is instinctive, emotional and rooted in an ancient cultural soil.
Reflecting on his upbringing, Hayes admits he likely wouldn't be the musician he is had he not grown up in that environment. Structured learning never held his attention, school was something to get through. Music, however, existed outside those confines, as a realm of freedom that he could pursue entirely on his own terms. It taught him early on that creativity lives in the tension between intellectual understanding and the intangible inner world where performance truly happens. That tension, he believes, is present in every musician, the battle between control and surrender, knowledge and expression.
#australianmusician #martinhayes
Martin Hayes, virtuosic Irish fiddler, and one of the most significant talents in Irish traditional music will return to Australia February 2026. Ahead of his Australian tour along with guitarist Kyle Sanna, acclaimed Irish fiddler/composer Martin Hayes chatted with Australian Musician’s Greg Phillips
For Irish fiddle master Martin Hayes, music has never been an academic pursuit or a structured discipline. It has always been something lived, absorbed and felt. Raised in a deeply musical family in East County Clare, he learned traditional music “environmentally,” he says, not through theory or formal training, but through the natural osmosis of sound that shaped his childhood. That foundation continues to define the essence of Hayes' playing today, which is instinctive, emotional and rooted in an ancient cultural soil.
Reflecting on his upbringing, Hayes admits he likely wouldn't be the musician he is had he not grown up in that environment. Structured learning never held his attention, school was something to get through. Music, however, existed outside those confines, as a realm of freedom that he could pursue entirely on his own terms. It taught him early on that creativity lives in the tension between intellectual understanding and the intangible inner world where performance truly happens. That tension, he believes, is present in every musician, the battle between control and surrender, knowledge and expression.
#australianmusician #martinhayes
