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A trio of awesome virtuosity and drive – the legendary Joe Burke on accordion, piper Michael Cooney, and singer/guitarist Terry Corcoran.

Joe Burke, East Galway accordion player, has influenced innumerable box players worldwide through his illustrious career.

From his first public performance in 1955 to current recordings and tours, Burke has held a special place in the rolls of Irish traditional musicians. Known for his stylish use of triplets and rolls, he was been the recipient of awards such as the AIB Traditional Musician of the Year Award 1997and Gradam An Chomhaltais 2003.

A well-loved and respected teacher, Burke has offered his expertise to students from Co. Leitrim, Ireland to Paris, France, Dallas, Texas and various logging and fishing towns in Alaska.

He frequently performs with his wife, accordion and guitar player Anne Conroy Burke and has recorded with many musical greats including Andy McCann and Felix Dolan, Sean Maguire and Josephine Keegan, Michael Cooney and Terry Corcoran, Charlie Lennon, Frankie Gavin, Kevin Burke, Brian Conway, Noreen O’Donoghue and Mike Rafferty.

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Tipperary native uilleann piper Michael Cooney came from a family of pipers as his father and uncles were highland pipers in the Sean Tracey Pipe Band, founded by his grandfather and great-uncles. At a very young age, Cooney’s father took him all over the country for the best musical instruction available.

His early teachers included legendary fiddler Sean Ryan, and tin whitsle player Dan Cleary, the leader of the Ballinamere Ceili Band. During the folk revival of the early 1970s, Cooney received his first set of pipes. Because pipers were few and far between in the hills of Tipperary, Cooney learned his repertoire from local accordion and fiddle players and his piping techniques from the recordings uilleann pipe legends Willie Clancy and Seamus Eagan.

In the 1980s, Cooney won several All-Ireland solo championships in both the pipes and whistle competitions and toured the US with Andy McGann, Paddy Reynolds, and Joe Burke. In 1986, the duo released an album, Happy to Meet, Sorry to Part (Green Linnet) with the accompaniment of guitarist and vocalist Terry Corcoran. Since then, Conney recorded his first solo effort A Stone’s Throw (Green Linnet) featuring Sligo fiddler Kevin Burke.
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Singer/guitarist Terry Corcoran has been featured on albums such as the Smithsonian Folkways’ Classic Maritime Music (2004), and Green Linnet’s Celtophile collection’s The Celts Rise Again (1998), and has worked with button accordion player Larry Egan among others.

One of the most successful composer/producers in the entertainment business, Brian Keane has scored over 350 films, producing over 100 CDs with 29 Billboard Top Tens, five of which went to #1. In 2002 Brian Keane became the first composer in the history of the Emmys to sweep all the Emmy nominations for Outstanding Music Composition in a single year.

Recorded at Dublin’s Vicar Street during The Moving Hearts’ sold out four-night stand in February 2007, Live In Dublin captures some of Ireland’s finest instrumentalists at the very top of their collective game. Percussionist Noel Eccles says: “There’s unfinished business! When we last played it was as an instrumental band and we always felt we hadn’t finished exploring the possibilities of our unique line up.” This the first release from Moving Hearts in over 20 years and sees the band play a blistering set to a packed house in one of Dublin’s most intimate venues.

Directed by Philip King the DVD features music from the influential fourth album The Storm. Played by a group of musicians who are all veterans of the Irish and world music stage, it features Donal Lunny, Davy Spillane, Keith Donald, Eoghan O’Neill, Noel Eccles, Matt Kelleghan, Anto Drennan, Graham Henderson, and Kevin Glacken.

Moving Hearts started playing together in The Baggot Inn, Dublin on February 1981. That first line-up comprised Christy Moore, vocals, guitar and bodhran, Donal Lunny on bouzouki and synthesizer, Declan Sinnott on electric guitar, Eoghan O’Neill on bass, Brian Calnan on drums and percussion, Davy Spillane on pipes and low whistle and Keith Donald on various saxophones. The band attracted huge attention for its blending of musical influences – folk, Irish traditional, rock, funk and jazz – as well as its commentary in the songs sung by Christy Moore on issues of concern in the areas of human rights and political skulduggery. In addition to songs about Ireland, Christy sang about the nuclear industry, thieving landlords, the US-engineered coup in Chile that replaced the elected Allende with Pinochet and his cronies and the dark side of organized religion.

After many changes of personnel – nineteen people have played or sung in the band – the decision was made to concentrate on instrumental music and to follow on from The Storm, the influential album of 6 instrumentals that was recorded after the band ceased regular gigging in 1984. After reforming to tour in 1987, the band went their several ways for most of two decades and watched as the world caught up with their music. Unlike many bands that stop working together, all the core members of Moving Hearts went on to have successful careers as musicians and bring huge depth and range of experience to a band that never stopped playing.

“Scottish harper Catriona McKay’s latest collection Starfish is a thing of extraordinary beauty…Layered delights reveal themselves with each successive exposure: a sure recipe for longevity.” – The Irish Times 2007

2007 Scottish Traditional Awards “Instrumentalist of the Year” Catriona McKay’s new solo CD, Starfish is a gorgeous and mesmerizing album of adventurous and mysterious contemporary Scottish music that features the harp on noticeable lead. Catriona’s music blends elements of folk, jazz, classical, and Scottish traditional music and presents a delightfully sexy exploration of the limits of the Celtic harp. On Starfish, Catriona is backed by solid guitar, fiddle, bass, and string work, as well as subtle electronic treatments.

Well known on the Scottish music scene as a member of the leading Shetland band Fiddlers’ Bid, Catriona McKay has recently began touring in the US and has been featured at several key festivals including Boston’s Irish Connections and Milwaukee’s Irish Fest. She is a fearless contemporary explorer on the Scottish harp, having collaborated with a wide array of folk, jazz, classical and experimental artists, as well as co-designing the new Starfish McKay harp, featuring an alternative tuning pattern and featured extensively on Starfish.

Featuring Donald Grant, Fionan “Fionomenal” De Barra, Matt Baker, Alistair MacDonald, Seamus Egan, and Red Skies.

Two of today’s top Celtic musicians join forces for an album that’s both delightful and inventive. Mixing traditional and contemporary material with glorious ease, piper and whistler John McSherry and whistle and flute master Michael McGoldrick soar with the kind of breezy freshness that’s all too often missing from Irish music these days. That’s perhaps to be expected from people whose pedigrees include the likes of Lúnasa, Donal Lunny, and Afro Celt Sound System, but the pairing proves to be even more natural and joyful than anticipated, as the two push each other further on “Ornette’s Trip to Belfast,” for example, and caress the melody of “The Bloom of Youth.” With some sprightly, sympathetic backing that never becomes overpowering, the two are left in the spotlight–and they shine perfectly.

Coralie Clément was born into a family of musicians. Her father is a clarinet player and he brother Benjamin Biolay, also a singer, has written for Henri Salvador and wrote and produced her own debut, as well as its follow-up. Among her claimed inspirations are Françoise Hardy, Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg. She recorded her first album while studying history at university. Clément sang the song  “Dorénavant,” used as the theme of the film L’Idole by Samantha Lang, starring Leelee Sobieski as well as the song “Samba de mon cœur qui bat” used in the soundtrack of the movie Something’s Gotta Give starring Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Amanda Peet, Keanu Reeves and Frances McDormand. She released her first album in 2001, Salle des Pas Perdus which was a collaborative effort between her and her brother. Her second album, Bye bye Beauté, was released in 2005 and took more of a pop spin.

“They called it music, in the church house and the fields /

 It was honest, it was simple, and it helped the hard times heal”

Last year, Eric and Leigh Gibson found that lyric, from the title track of their new record They Called It Music, to be truer than they could have realized.

2012 was a year of triumph for the Gibsons, who took home the Entertainer of the Year trophy, bluegrass music’s highest honor, at the International Bluegrass Music Awards. But it was also a time of tragedy due to the death of their father, the duo’s biggest supporter, who passed away before he saw his boys recognized on bluegrass music’s biggest stage. Kelley Gibson, the last in a line of family farmers who had tended soil and raised dairy cattle since the Civil War, was adamant that his two sons not follow in his footsteps; he knew all too well the backbreaking labor and financial instability such a career entailed, especially in a town like Ellenburg Depot in upstate New York, where the climate is temperamental and the land ill-suited for growing much beyond hay for the herds.

When it comes to sustainability and stability, a career in music isn’t the first that comes to mind. But Eric and Leigh, despite being geographically removed from the genre’s Appalachian roots, have made a name for themselves in bluegrass over the past two decades, playing over 80 shows and festivals a year and gradually building a deeply dedicated, nationwide fan base with their spellbinding harmony singing, which can reach the high lonesome notes of Bill and Charlie Monroe and capture the tenderness of pop/country crooners the Everly Brothers.

They Called It Music, the Gibson Brothers’ third release for roots label Compass Records and the follow-up to 2011’s IBMA Album of the Year, Help My Brother, is their best yet, incorporating their varied influences–which range from Roy Acuff to Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers–and delivering gorgeous acoustic music with the finesse that only comes from decades of experience. They’ve always had an uncanny ability to blend the classic and the modern, a tradition that continues on this album. “Home on the River,” a spiritual song that’s approximately a century old—and was recorded by the Delmore Brothers decades before the Gibsons were born–fits seamlessly among well-written originals and covers of songs by contemporary artists like Mark Knopfler (“Daddy’s Gone to Knoxville”) and Shawn Camp and Loretta Lynn (“Dying for Someone to Live For”). “There are so many different flavors on this record,” Leigh says. “Every song has its own personality.”

While both Leigh and Eric have written extensively for their previous albums, as they were working on material for They Called It Music, the latter found a renewed passion for writing. “In the past, I’ve waited for inspiration, but, to me, if you’re going to call yourself a songwriter, you need to find time to write songs,” he explains. The time Eric found wasn’t always deliberate—the poignant album closer “Songbird’s Song” was written during a losing battle with insomnia while on tour in Europe—but the work he put into his craft paid off: the six songs he wrote or co-wrote for They Called It Music, including the title track, display a sharp eye for detail and, in the case of “Something Comin’ to Me,” which was written with Leigh and Shawn Camp a month after Kelley Gibson’s passing, heartbreaking emotional rawness.

The dozen songs on They Called It Music were specifically chosen to highlight the brothers’ hallmark: their sublime harmonies. “That’s always been our calling card,” says Eric, “But we wanted to accentuate it on this record.” “Home on the River” features close harmony singing throughout the entire song, and on rafter-rattlers like “Dusty Old World” and “Sundown and Sorrow,” the harmonies are so tight it’s hard to tell where one brother’s voice ends and the other’s begins.

The five-man band has honed their sound through hundreds of shows and thousands of miles. Mike Barber has played bass behind Eric’s banjo and Leigh‘s guitar for 20 years, so long that he’s affectionately nicknamed “the third Gibson Brother;” fiddler Clayton Campbell has been with them for eight, and the group’s newest member, Joe Walsh, recently celebrated his fourth anniversary as the band’s mandolin player. It’s a lineup that gets better with each performance, providing deft and tasteful backing for Leigh and Eric’s harmonies and occasionally tearing through a blistering bluegrass instrumental. They’re in sync onstage and in-studio – much of They Called It Music was recorded live at Compass Sound Studios in Nashville, capturing the exhilarating energy and impeccable musicianship that captivate the crowds who flock to their performances.

After a year of unimaginable highs and devastating lows, the Gibson Brothers continue to find strength in each other and in the harmonies they’ve honed since childhood. They’re a long way from the pastures of that Ellenburg Depot dairy farm, but They Called It Music sure feels like coming home.

Cecilia Noël is passionate, flamboyant, exotic, and incredible talented. “Salsoul”, the genre Noël created to describe her sound, combines elements of salsa, soul, jazz, funk, and afro-cuban.

Originally from Lima, Perú, Noël’s career began at the age of eight with a starring role in a Perúvian television show called “El Tío Johnny.” As a teenager, Noël’s mother Menina Pereira sent her to Argentina and Germany to take voice, violin, and piano lessons. Upon returning, she sang and studied under the tutelage of famed Italian bandleader Carlo Berscia. Encouraged by the legendary Stan Getz to move to the US, Noël relocated to New York City and sang at the legendary Rainbow Room, and as a principal dancer with Jo Jo’s Dance Factory and with the legendary boy band Menudo.

Noël moved to Los Angeles in 1989, and, with her newly formed SalSoul band Cecilia Noël and The Wild Clams were signed to Epic records shortly thereafter.

A James Brown meets Pérez Prado band, Cecilia Noël And The Wild Clams quickly received attention for their explosive live shows and became one of the most powerful and entertaining live music acts in Los Angeles, and beyond, over the last 20 years.

This year of 2014, finds Cecilia about to release her new album “Havana Rocks” in August, recorded in Havana, Cuba. She is currently playing dates in LA and surrounding areas, with her new somewhat smaller band, with spectacular musicians hailing from Cuba, Puerto Rico and Venezuela.

Noël also performs and records with husband and former Men At Work frontman Colin Hay.

It’s a commonplace that change creates opportunities, but the principle was thoroughly—and successfully—tested by Alaska-by-way-of-Nashville’s Bearfoot last year, when original members Angela Oudean and Jason Norris found themselves presiding over a prolonged period of shifting personnel.  Yet the cliché proved true in the end when the pair recruited Todd Grebe, another Alaska-to-Nashville transplant, Nora Jane Struthers, a rising young singer/songwriter andone of her bandmates, P. J. George, to create a renewed ensemble full of energy and creativity.  And now, with the release of American Story (available Sept 27), the group’s latest effort for Compass Records, it’s plain to see that the changes were little more than a blessing in disguise. 

Following the success of Bearfoot’s 2009 Compass debut, Doors And Windows, which debuted at # 1 on the Billboard Bluegrass chart, American Story introduces three new members, showing off both their distinctive voices and the impressive level of integration the quintet’s already achieved.  Lead singer, songwriter and guitar player Nora Jane Struthers is the best known of the additions, having already released one stellar album highlighting her thoughtful songwriting and cool, clear voice—and having won the tough Telluride Bluegrass Festival Band Competition in 2010 with her Bootleggers, a group featuring the second new member of Bearfoot, bass player P. J. George.  Rounding out the revamped lineup is guitarist/vocalist Todd Grebe, previously known for his work fronting the acoustic honky-tonk  group Todd Grebe & Cold Country.  And while the group claim that they’re still settling into their new sound, one listen to American Story offers compelling evidence that they’re being more modest than accurate. 

With veteran producer/engineer Brent Truitt at the helm, Bearfoot hits the ground running on the new project with the Struthers-penned opener, “Tell Me A Story.”  With its restrained prologue and keenly rhythmic body, the song dishes up a healthy serving of the band’s strong points: a winningly intimate lead vocal, tight harmonies, and an arrangement that weaves together a multiplicity of musical strands, from the string band and bluegrass music that made up Bearfoot’s earliest sounds to a unique take on the acoustic pop influences whirling around the group’s East Nashville home.  “This song, and in some ways, this album, is really about escapism,” says Nora Jane.  “We all have different ways of removing ourselves from reality, and I get myself lost in stories.”

From there, it’s a swift, satisfying run through a dazzling array of sounds and stories to the easy, good-time lope of Grebe’s closing “Mr. Moonshine.”  Along the way, there are stops for hard-core bluegrass (“Midnight in Montana” with help from guest Charlie Cushman on banjo), a sly and sultry come-on (“When You’re Away,” written by the entire group), the poignant and ominous portrait of a trapped woman in “Eyes Cast Down” (written by Struthers and Claire Lynch) and much more—true stories and tall tales, but always with real people and real situations at their center.  “I really connect with those lyrics,” Jason Norris says of “Feel Free” (written by Struthers and Tim O’Brien). “When Nora Jane first played it for us, I thought ‘Wow, that could actually have been written by me,’” he adds, and in truth, the sentiment could as easily come from a listener. 

Adding to the project’s depth, Truitt and Bearfoot haven’t been afraid to explore new sonic territory, deftly blending the group’s acoustic instruments with touches of percussion, electric bass, accordion, banjo and more—many of them supplied by P. J. George, who serves as the group’s gifted utility man—yet always, each touch appears to underline, rather than draw attention from the songs.“I love that the entire album has a really rockin’ element to it, with more energy than we’ve ever had before,” Oudean observes—From start to finish, it’s an album of distinctive music that remains deeply authentic, true to the band’s rootsy origins even as it steps into more sophisticated musical territory.

American Story would be a strong collection coming from a veteran artist and it’s certainly true that the individual members of Bearfoot, old and new, are, while still young, genuine veterans.  Yet it’s all the more impressive for being the product of a group that has yet to celebrate its first anniversary as an ensemble.  That makes for a great story, and for an even greater appreciation of American Story, but as the members of Bearfoot would be the first to point out, in the end the only thing that matters is the music; here it is, and it’s mighty fine.

JOANIE MADDEN (flute, whistle)
Daughter of button accordionist Joe Madden, was the first U.S.-born competitor to win the All-Ireland senior tin whistle title (1984) and is also an All-Ireland champion on flute. She has recorded a dozen albums with Cherish the Ladies, a group she co-founded in 1985 and still leads.

BRENDAN DOLAN (keyboards)
Son of pianist Felix Dolan, is one of the most respected and inventive keyboardists in Irish music today. He appears on Brian Conway’s Consider the Source and Billy McComiskey’s Outside the Box, as well as Live at Mona’s with Patrick Ourceau and Eamon O’Leary and the Irish American music projects of Mick Moloney.

BILLY McCOMISKEY (accordion)
The 1986 All-Ireland senior button accordion champion, has recorded three albums with the Irish Tradition (a trio featuring Brendan Mulvihill and Andy O’Brien) and two with Trian (a trio featuring Liz Carroll and Dáithí Sproule), as well as two solo CDs for Green Linnet / Compass.

BRIAN CONWAY (fiddle)
The 1986 All-Ireland senior fiddle champion, has several recordings to his credit. They include two solo releases, First Through the Gate in 2002 and Consider the Source in 2008, and two trio albums, The Apple in Winter (with Tony DeMarco and Caesar Pacifici) in 1981 and A Tribute to Andy McGann (with Joe Burke and Felix Dolan) in 2000.

“These girls inspire and motivate each other, which has enabled them to create a common musical idiom that crosses national borders. They seem to glow with their joy in playing and respect each other immensely.”
– Nordlys (Norway)

The String Sisters is a collaboration of the Celtic music world’s top female fiddlers; Annbjørg Lien from Norway, Catriona Macdonald from Shetland, Liz Carroll and Liz Knowles from the US, Mairead ni Mhaonaigh (Altan) from Ireland and Emma Härdelin from Sweden. Originally brought together for a special one-time show at Glasgow’s annual Celtic Connections festival to celebrate each of their region’s musical traditions, the results of this live recording contain some of the most brilliant fiddling heard in Celtic music. On Live, the String Sisters are joined by David Milligan (piano), Conrad Ivitsky (double bass), Tore Bruvoll (guitar) and James Mackintosh (drums).