Eileen Ivers & Immigrant Soul
Eileen Ivers & Immigrant Soul, Nine Time All-Ireland Fiddle
Champion, London Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony at The
Kennedy Center, Boston Pops, musical star of Riverdance, The
Chieftains, Hall and Oates, Afrocelts, Patti Smith, Paula Cole,
founding member of Cherish the Ladies, performed for Presidents and
Royalty worldwide …this is a short list of accomplishments,
headliners, tours and affiliations. Fiddler Eileen Ivers has
established herself as the pre-eminent exponent of the Irish fiddle
in the world today.
It is a rare and select grade of spectacular artists whose work is
so boldly imaginative and clearly virtuosic that it alters the
medium. It has been said that the task of respectfully exploring the
traditions and progression of the Celtic fiddle is quite literally
on Eileen Ivers' shoulders.
She's been called a "sensation" by Billboard magazine and "the Jimi
Hendrix of the violin" by The New York Times. "She electrifies the
crowd with a dazzling show of virtuoso playing" says The Irish
Times. Ivers' recording credits include over 80 contemporary and
traditional albums and numerous movie scores.
The daughter of Irish immigrants, Eileen Ivers grew up in the
culturally diverse neighborhood of the Bronx, New York. Rooted in
Irish traditional music since the age of eight, Eileen proceeded to
win nine All-Ireland fiddle championships, a tenth on tenor banjo
and over 30 championship medals, making her one of the most awarded
persons ever to compete in these prestigious competitions.
In 1999 Eileen established a touring production to present the music
which now encompasses Eileen Ivers & Immigrant Soul. This mix of
African and Latin percussion and bass, Irish instrumentalists, and
American soulful vocals headlines major performing arts centers,
guest stars with numerous symphonies, performs at major festivals
worldwide and has appeared on national and international television.
The Makem Brothers
After more than 13 years, the Makem Brothers have spun into a
musical cocoon and emerged as the powerhouse Irish vocal group of
their generation. The Makem Brothers know Irish music almost inherently. They grew up at sing-songs and sessions frequented by some of Ireland’s best known and prolific singers and musicians. As professional entertainers since 1989, they have had the unique opportunity to study first hand from many of the best acts in Irish music today.
They have played before millions of people on both sides of the Atlantic, including national slots on American public television and Irish talk shows. From California to Ireland and from Texas to Canada, the list of stages on which they have performed is equally impressive and includes Symphony Space in New York City, the World Cup and the Guinness Fleadh.
Shane, Conor and Rory Makem represent the third generation in their legendary family of Irish-born singers. Their grandmother Sarah Makem was a source singer and was visited by folk music collectors from all over the world such as Pete Seeger,
Diane Hamilton and Jean Ritchie for her great store of old Irish
songs. Their father, Tommy Makem first came to world prominence with the Clancy Brothers in the 1960s. Together the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem
gave Irish music a popularity it had never seen, bringing it from
Carnegie Hall to the Ed Sullivan Show.
Aoife Clancy
Aoife Clancy (pronounced "Eefa") brings a
refreshing new voice to folk music, one that ranges from traditional
Irish songs to ballads and contemporary folk. Aoife comes from the
small town of Carrick-on-Suir, in Co Tipperary, Ireland, where her
musical career began at an early age. Her father Bobby Clancy of the
legendary Clancy Brothers, placed a guitar in her hands at age ten,
and by age fourteen was playing with her father in nearby pubs.
She later moved to Dublin, where she studied drama
at the Gaiety School of Acting. After a season at the Gaiety, Aoife
was invited to do a tour of Australia. There she performed at
festivals and concerts sharing the stage with some of Ireland's
greatest performers, including Christy Moore and the Furey Brothers.
Her performances also include a Caribbean cruises with the Clancy
Brothers, the Milwaukee Irish Festival, the North Texas Irish
Festival and a seven week tour of the
United States with the renowned Paddy Noonan Show.
Now with seven recordings under her belt in the
last decade, Aoife has clearly established herself as one of the
Divas of Irish and contemporary Folk Music. On Aoife's second Rego solo album, "Soldiers and Dreams," Al
Riess, from Dirty Linen magazine, wrote: "Solders and Dreams has a
contemporary-meets-traditional-music feel and Clancy's smooth,
expressive singing works both ways- ensuring a successful merger of
the two approaches and an enjoyable listening pleasure".
Robbie O'Connell
Robbie O'Connell was born in Waterford, Ireland and grew up in
Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary, where his parents had a small
hotel. He began to play guitar and sing at age thirteen and soon
became a regular performer at the hotel’s weekly folk concerts. He
spent a year touring the folk clubs in England before enrolling at
University College Dublin where he studied Literature and
Philosophy. During school vacations Robbie worked as an Irish
entertainer in the U.S.A. and in 1977, he joined the Clancy Brothers
with whom he has recorded 3 albums. Two years later he moved to
Franklin, Massachusetts.
With the release, in 1982, of his first solo album, Close to the
Bone, Robbie emerged as an artist of major stature. Soon after, he
began touring extensively with Mick Moloney and Jimmy Keane, and
also with Eileen Ivers and Seamus Egan in the Green Fields of
America. In 1985, the trio's first album, There Were Roses, was
released. In 1987, the trio followed up their very successful first release with the album,
Kilkelly, the title track of which was voted "Best Album Track of
the Year" in Ireland.
Robbie has taught songwriting at the Augusta Heritage Arts Workshop
in Elkins, West Virginia, Gaelic Roots Week at Boston College and at
the Summer Acoustic Music Week in Boston. His album of original
compositions, Love of the Land, was voted the #1 acoustic album of
1989 by WUMB in Boston. In 1991, he won a prestigious Boston Music
Award as Outstanding Celtic Act and was also featured in the highly
acclaimed TV series "Bringing It All Back Home." In 1992 he
performed at Carnegie Hall with the Clancy Brothers and was also
seen by an estimated 500 million people worldwide on the telecast of
a live tribute to Bob Dylan at Madison Square Garden, a performance
which Rolling Stone magazine described as "breathtaking.”
John Williams and Dean Magraw
It is rare to find pure creativity and extraordinary musical talent in one
performer, but when two are combined, the possibilities are endless. John
Williams, an award-winning concertina, flute, and button box player, and
Dean Magraw, an adventurous guitar master, combine their diverse talents and
styles for an unbeatable concert. Williams and Magraw first joined forces
ten years ago when they were invited on stage at The Cedar Cultural Center
by fiddler Martin Hayes to improvise an encore of Irish jigs and reels. The
resulting confluence of these three giants sparked an immediate electricity
which opened the door to John and Dean's fruitful and enduring
collaboration. Although both musicians are active on many musical fronts,
they are continually surprised by the inspiration which ignites when they
come together. Steeped in the love of traditional Irish music (and its
Celtic relatives in other lands), John Williams and Dean Magraw bring a
solid foundation of melodic integrity to the stage.
Dean performed for two of John Williams' recent recordings to great critical
acclaim, and the two are preparing to release their most recent duo recording
this fall entitled Raven. The album is a traditionally innovative collection of
chestnuts and road tested originals which soars from driven dance tune
adventures to dark haunted airs. Ed Miller, Rich Brotherton and John Taylor
Ed Miller is one of the finest singers to emerge from the
Scottish folk revival, a guitar-wielding folkie who wins his
audiences over with a sweet but powerful voice, a great ear for
material, and equal doses of populist politics and wry humor. He
learned his craft in the sessions, clubs, and festivals of the folk
revival, both in Scotland and the United States. Ed is the host of a
folk music program on Austin's NPR station, KUT-FM. He is a
performer who has learned his craft in musical venues on both sides
of the Atlantic, and a folklorist who brings his love of Scotland to
every performance.
Ed is well known in the Dallas area, and has earned a well
deserved reputation as the "Token Scot" at the NTIF.
Ed will be accompanied by guitarist Rich Brotherton and fiddler
John Taylor.
bohola
bohola,
a band forged in Chicago by three of Irish Music’s most innovative
musicians, Jimmy Keane, Sean Cleland and Pat Broaders, play a
driving, muscular, and yet emotive style of Irish Music with deep
roots in the “pure drop” tradition, melded with the raw and gritty
urbanized musical vernacular of the Irish-American experience. With
each regarded as the tops in his field, this combination provides a
powerful, rich and distinctive sound that is coupled with a dynamic
and energetic presence - the sum of which is bohola.
Each musician has an extensive background in Traditional Irish
Music, learning at the hands of some of the finest exponents of
Traditional Irish Music in Chicago and Ireland. Jimmy
Keane (accordion), born in London of Irish-speaking parents,
immigrated to Chicago from Ireland with his family in the early
1960’s. His late father James, was a sean-nos (old style) singer who
actively encouraged Jimmy to take up traditional music. In his early
teens he began playing music with his Chicago contemporaries,
fiddler Liz Carroll, and flute-player and stepdancer, Michael
Flatley.
Sean
Cleland (fiddle), born in Milwaukee of Irish-American parents
was raised in Chicago. He began studying classical music at the age
of seven and briefly studied with fiddler Liz Carroll in the 1970’s.
Sean has won numerous Midwest and North American Fleadh Cheoil’s
Titles on the fiddle.
Pat Broaders (dordan, vocals), was born in Dublin of parents from
County Wexford, Ireland and immigrated to the United States in the
early 1990’s settling in Chicago. Pat began studying Irish Music at
the age of twelve and studied bouzouki briefly with Bothy Band
co-founder Donal Lunny. While in Ireland, Pat began singing and
performing with a series of groups including In Tua Nua, Cry Before
Dawn, and An Beal Bocht, who toured with The Chieftains.
Brother
From the soaring highs of the bagpipes to the deep pulse of the
Australian didgeridoo, two Aussie siblings, Hamish and Angus Richardson,
have defied convention and proudly invented "mongrel music".
BROTHER first-timers often approach the band, put a fist to their
chest and say: 'I really felt it here'. Nothing defines our music better
than that. If you're a performing musician - or any kind of artist - who
could ask for a better reaction than that? We get some out-there
descriptions of the music: ‘imagine U2 with didges..’; ‘Beck meets
early Peter Gabriel’; ‘the bastard sons of Crowded House and Midnight
Oil’ so we know we’re getting it right if that’s the kind of reaction
our sound is getting.
“Go out and get hit over the head
with this music as soon as possible. There's just nothing else like
it. It's not every day that your front men both pull out bagpipes
instead of guitars and cover the solo parts in an amazingly
harmonized duel. From sampled loops to ancestral pipes, shredding
guitar to sobbing cello, everything comes together in a perfectly
balanced sonic tapestry.” Live Magazine, December 2003
Jed Marum
Jed Marum is an established and a favored performer at Celtic festivals and concert rooms
throughout the U.S. In 2005, he performed over 150 shows, bringing his stories of Irish culture
and the American immigration experience to audiences in over fifty cities in a dozen states.
All four of Jed's albums receive international radio airplay regularly - on Celtic and Bluegrass
radio shows - on web cast programs - and on MP3 services all around the world.
His latest album, “MILES FROM HOME”, with guest players Brian McNeill, Paul Mills and Tom Leighton,
was among the Most Played Albums of the Folk/Celtic DJ Playlist for four months in 2005.
Jed is known as a gifted singer and an exceptional guitar player. He is an accomplished banjo
and harmonica player as well and brings some fascinating new sounds to the stage with unusual
hybrid instruments like the hi-strung backpacker and the banjola. Widely respected as a songwriter,
Jed has licensed several of his original songs for use by other recording artists, movies and
television.
Beth Patterson & Kalafka
Multi-instrumentalist Beth Patterson is foremost a player of the eight - and ten -
stringed Irish bouzoukis (adaptations of a traditional Greek
instrument). This native of Lafayette, Louisiana began her
professional musical career in her early teens as a classical oboist
and a Cajun bass player (with the required teenage heavy metal stint
on the side), but not truly belonging to any of these, set out to
create her own niche. She now integrates into her style her
experiences of playing Celtic, Cajun, rock, jazz, blues, country,
gospel, classical, Latin, and folk music. She has played in eleven
countries throughout the Americas and Europe, and maintains an
active gigging schedule in her home base of New Orleans. She spent a
year studying traditional Irish music and ethnomusicology at
University College, Cork in Ireland, where she first studied the
music of West Africa, India, Indonesia, and the Caribbean, and began
to experiment with fusions of these musical genres and her previous
influences. With Kalafka, she
integrates alternative pop with Irish music and other ethnic styles, such as Cajun, Latin,
Mediterranean, and African, to name but a few. Her music has gained critical acclaim in the
United States and Europe, and has appeared on National Public Radio and PBS. Her stage presence
has been described by viewers as "a cross between a cobra and a puppy" and "innocent savagery."
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