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Co. Dublin native Séamus Ennis (1919-1982), master uilleann piper, teacher, singer, storyteller, broadcaster, and song collector, is credited with being one of the most pivotal players in the evolving history of Irish music. During his career, Ennis witnessed and promoted the changing of the generational guard. He understood that it was essential to embrace new technologies in order to preserve Irish music while simultaneously emphasizing and passing along the organic, ever-developing nature of the oral tradition.

Ennis took up the uilleann pipes at the age of 13 under the tutelage of his father, a civil servant and national multi-instrumental champion. After graduation, Ennis told Colm Ó Lochlainn, a close family friend and the editor of “Irish Street Ballads,”, that he was thinking of joining the British Army. It was the beginning of WWII, and Lochlainn offered Ennis a job with The Three Candles Press to keep him off the lines.

While at The Three Candles, Ennis learned how to transcribe and print slow airs, a skill that he put to use after war shortages closed the press. He was subsequently hired by the Irish Folklore Commission to collect songs. Given a pen, some paper, a bike, and three pounds a week, Ennis spent the next five years collecting tunes from across Ireland.
In 1947, Ennis went to work as a broadcaster at Radio Eireann, where he recorded pipe great Willie Clancy for the first time. In 1951, Ennis moved to London to record traditional Irish, Scottish, and Welsh music for the BBC.

Ennis began work as a freelance musician in 1958, later returning to Ireland where he lived until his death in 1982.

Ennis bridged old Éire and modern Ireland. A master of the slow air, he lives on in the style and approach of many of today’s top pipers, having influenced the tradition as it transformed throughout the twentieth century. The once-obscure tunes that he collected are some of the most well-known today, and his work in broadcasting helped to legitimize Irish music’s widespread entertainment value.

Derry-born fiddler and renowned Irish step dancer Eugene O’Donnell is particularly well known for his vivid, riveting slow airs. The TCRG and ADTCRG (listened Irish dance instructor and adjudicator) began Irish dancing at the age of three, and was the first Irish dancer ever to dance on television in London at the age of twelve, all the while playing and perfecting Derry-style Irish fiddling.

As a teen, O’Donnell won an unprecedented five consecutive All-Ireland dancing championships, and in 1957, he moved to Philadelphia, where he has continued to promote the Irish arts. As a young man, O’Donnell frequented The Commodore Barry Club (The Irish Centre) in Philly. Six months after several Irish societies banded together to buy the building in 1958, O’Donnell helped to create a Ceili band that would go on to win the New York fleadh in the mid-60s.

Known for his Derry region-style fiddling, a Northern regional style characterized by an excitable, stacatto, Scottish quality (similar to the Donegal region style), O’Donnell holds six All-Ireland fiddle championship titles. In 1978, O’Donnell teamed up with guitar/bouzouki/mandolin great Mick Moloney to create Slow Airs and Set Dances and in 1988, O’Donnell released The Foggy Dew.

The Irish Tradition play music and sing songs with passion, pleasure, and virtuosity. Their sound is as refreshing as anything you’ll ever hear, yet they are infused with a sense of history and a singular commitment to the traditional music they love to play. A glorious ensemble sound.

Born of the musical union of British fiddle virtuoso Brendan Mulvihill and New Yorker accordion virtuoso Billy McComisky, Irish Tradition recorded two albums for Green Linnet Records, The Corner House (1978), and The Times We’ve Had (1985), produced by Irish guitarist Mick Moloney.

McComiskey and Mulvihill first performed together during a week-long Washington DC Irish festival in 1975 with guitarist/vocalist Andy O’Brien. The trio soon became a permanent fixture in Washington, DC, playing five nights a week for four years. Their musical collaboration spurned many new projects including Irish-American bands Celtic Thunder, the Hags, and Boiling Spuds.

Button accordion master James Keane was born in Drimnagh, Dublin, in 1948 into an intensely musical family. He began playing the box at the age of six, and by the time he was ten, he was an active musician in the Dublin traditional music scene alongside greats such as Seamus Ennis and Sonny Brogan.

As a young teenager, Keane co-founded the Castle Ceili Band, which would go on win the All-Ireland Ceili Band Championship in 1965. Keane also won All-Irelands in soloist categories, including three consecutive wins in the senior division (a record that still stands unbroken).

As an adult, Keane and his brother, fiddler Seán Keane teamed up with flautist Mick O’Connor to assemble a group of musicians that would become the musical “melting pot from which the Chieftans would emerge.” The gentlemen included Joe Ryan, John Dwyer, Liam Rowsome, Michael Tubridy, Bridie Lafferty, John Kelly, and were drawn from both the Castle Ceili Band as well as Sean O’Riada’s legendary Ceoltoiri Cualann (the first Irish band ever assembled for the purpose of the music only, without regard to dancers).

During the Dublin folk-revival during the mid-1960s, Keane became a powerful mentor for many of Irish Trad music’s most well known musicians, including singer/guitarist/composer Paul Brady and multi-instrumentalist-turned-musicologist Dr. Mick Moloney.

1967 brought Keane to America for a tour with accordionist Joe Burke, flautist Paddy Carty, and the Loughrea Ceili Band. Keane felt the palpable opportunity America had to offer Irish music, and moved to New York in 1968. Once established in the city, Keane was invited to play everywhere from Madison Square Garden to Carnegie Hall, and was hailed as “the accordionist, who swung through reels with such exciting drive that he virtually lifted the audience out of their seats,” (music critic John S Wilson).

During his first years in New York, Keane recorded his first solo albums for Rex Records, 1980 brought a move to Nova Scotia to become a member of the band Ryan’s Fancy, with whom he performed on television, toured, and recorded three records. His next solo endeavor united he and his brother Sean for the first time since the latter was recruited by the Chieftains in 1968, titled Roll Away The Reel World, and produced by Mick Moloney.

Keane moved back to New York when Ryan’s Fancy broke up, and made his US Network TV debut on NBC’s The Today Show. The rest of the 1980s were full of solo performances, duo tours with Seamus Connelly and a stint with the All-Star touring act The Green Fields of America.

1991 brought Keane a homecoming, and he played his first public performance in 23 years for the Dublin Traditional Music Festival with Chieftan’s singer Kevin Conneff and former student Paul Brady. Afterward, he starred in the New York Public Television’s weekly music program Irish Eyes and Erin Focus. In 1993, Keane recorded That’s the Spirit with John Doyle (1994) and in 1996, Keane and Doyle were joined by Solas’s Seamus Egan and Winifred Horan to record The Irish Isle for a companion cookbook called “New Irish Cuisine.”

In 1997, Keane moved back to Ireland and recorded With Friends Like These (Shanachie Records) with Bothy Band members Paddy Glackin and Tommy Peoples, Chieftans’ Kevin Conneff, Liam O’Flynn of Planxty, and Matt Molloy. This all-star effort was the perfect way to celebrate and honor a lifetime of music and friendship.

“The Old Blind Dogs play with a compelling energy and intoxicating rhythm,” says The Scotsman, “as players and audience seem to share a wild ecstasy of emotion.”

Fifteen years is a long time in the life of any band and most who reach that milestone are content to rest on the tried and true formulas that have worked in the past. Not so for Scotland’s Old Blind Dogs whose newly released Four on the Floor takes them bravely in many new directions.

The Dogs, one of Scotland’s most highly touted traditional folk bands, are not known for shying away from change. A strong, shared musical vision has allowed the group to ride out inevitable line-up changes to the extent that the only original member still with the band is Jonny Hardie (fiddle, guitar and vocals). The Dogs’ popularity has never dimmed though and the current foursome of Hardie, Aaron Jones (Bass, Bouzouki, Guitar, Vocals), Rory Campbell (Border (Reel) Pipes, Whistles, Vocals) and Fraser Stone (Drums, Percussion) have proven more than capable of carrying on the tradition of the band that the Montreal Gazette called “a Scots neo-traditional supergroup with a bracingly modern musical attack.”

Hardie who was classically trained, has recently been much in demand as a freelance producer and guitarist, and has solo and collaborative albums to his credit. Rory Campbell has been playing pipes and whistles since a young age and has fronted groups Deaf Shepherd and Nusa, as well as performing in a variety of ground-breaking traditional projects such as 2006’s The Blow Show. Aaron Jones who was voted Instrumentalist of the Year 2005 at the Scots Trad Music Awards is a past member of Craobh Rua and is a founding partner of www.tradmusic.com. He has appeared on many albums and continues to work regularly with some of the biggest names in traditional music, both as a performer and recently, as a producer with flute/fiddle player, Claire Mann. Fraser Stone brings his African-based percussion to both the Dogs and to highly-touted indie rock band Stereoglo.

Together, in varying line-ups along with past members Buzzby McMillan, Davy Cattanach (percussion), Fraser Fifield (saxophone, small pipes), Paul Jennings (percussion) and singers Ian Benzie and Jim Malcolm, the Dogs have released ten albums and have won numerous awards including the prestigious title of Folk Band of the Year at the 2004 Scots Trad Music Awards.

One aspect of Four on the Floor that might surprise even long-term Dogs fans is that instead of bringing in a new vocalist to replace Malcolm, who left to concentrate on his family and solo career, the remaining Dogs now share the singing duties, with admirable success. “For me,” says Hardie, “it was a matter of going back to thinking of the original sound of Old Blind Dogs. The band was a four piece for six years and, in many ways, I prefer the sound of four–with everyone having to work a little harder. We now have the ingredients for everyone to contribute songs rather than a front man and three backing singers. Because we all have a responsibility, we tend to focus on making sure the harmonies are right.”
The tracks on Four on the Floor run the gamut from contemporary songs such as Ewan McColl’s “Terror Time” and Davie Robertson’s “Star O’ The Bar” to tunes from Brittany and Galicia, to tunes found, as many a favorite Dog’s tune has been, in “dusty old books”. As to the title, Hardie claims that it “is just a reference to there being four of us on the stage now as far as I’m concerned–but everyone has there own theories (everything from manual gear boxes to us falling around a lot!) You decide.”
The Dogs have always been best known for their impassioned live shows and the inclusion of three classic Old Blind Dogs tracks, recorded live by the current line up, shows why. “Bedlam Boys/The Rights of Man”, “Branle” and “The Bonnie Earl O Moray” which span the Dog’s career, giving the listener a taste of what all the fuss is about. “It’s that live performance thing,” says Hardie. “There’s an honesty about it and we work hard on the stage. Perhaps we even err on the side of being too frenetic. We don’t really pace ourselves; we just go for it. I think ours is very immediate music.”

“Billy McComiskey is the finest and most influential B/C box player ever to emerge from the US. In that sense, Billy’s place within the transatlantic pantheon of Irish button accordionists is both high and secure, and Outside The Box will only strengthen that judgment.”

– Earle Hitchner, The Wall Street Journal / Irish Echo

Billy McComiskey is a highly regarded player and composer of Irish traditional music. A Brooklyn native, he started studying accordion with the late Sean McGlynn from Galway in his early teens. He won the All-Ireland Senior title in 1986. He formed and played with two legendary trios: Washington DC’s Irish Tradition and the internationally acclaimed Trian. He is known on both sides of the Atlantic as an indefatigable session player, teacher, and promulgator of the music. On Outside the Box, Billy’s first solo CD in almost 25 years, the listener is once again reminded why Billy is known as “the most accomplished B/C box player to emerge from Irish America”.

Niamh Parsons has come to be known as one of Ireland’s most distinctive singers. Her earthy, sensuous voice has drawn comparisons to such venerated singers as Dolores Keane, June Tabor and Sandy Denny. The great Scottish balladeer Archie Fisher said of her, “a songstress like her comes along once or twice in a generation.”

Never has this been more clear than on Niamh’s (pronounced “Neeve”) latest album, Heart’s Desire (Green Linnet, 2002), produced by Dennis Cahill. As with her two previous releases, she furthers the tradition of Irish song with heartfelt delivery and unadorned settings. The collection of songs is drawn from both traditional sources and modern writers, including Mark Knopfler and Andy Irvine. Heart’s Desire has received glowing reviews, and named “Celtic Album of the Year” by the Association for Independent Music (AFIM).

Born and raised in Dublin, Niamh and her sister learned to love traditional Irish singing and harmonizing from their father, Jack Parsons, to whom Niamh dedicates Heart’s Desire. “Daddy had a beautiful voice,” she says, “and a great ear for a good song.” Her mother was also a singer and a set dancer from Co. Clare. The family would often join in song at the local Dublin singers’ club, to which Niamh still attends.

Niamh’s passion for singing blossomed naturally into a penchant for collecting songs. She is always on the lookout for songs, new and old, that speak to her-listening to new albums, scouring the Traditional Music Archives in Dublin, sharing notes with a network of friends and other singers. Once she discovers a song she likes, Niamh views herself as the vehicle for the music. “For me the song is more important than listening to my voice,” she says. “I consider myself more a songstress than a singer – a carrier of tradition.”

Throughout her career, Niamh has performed with a wide variety of artists, and has appeared at nearly every prestigious folk festival on either side of the Atlantic. As a member of the traditional Irish band Arcady (led by De Dannan’s Johnny “Ringo” McDonagh), she is featured on the group’s AFIM-awarded CD Many Happy Returns. She appeared before President Clinton and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern in Washington, joined Grammy Award winner Paul Winter for an album and a summer concert in New York, and performed on A Prairie Home Companion when the show broadcast live from Dublin.

Niamh’s recording career began with The Loose Connections, a band of top-notch Belfast musicians she formed with songwriter and bass-player Dee Moore. The band recorded two albums of contemporary and traditional material together. Their debut recording, Loosely Connected (Greentrax, 1992; Green Linnet, 1995) met with the highest of praise. A beautiful mix of traditional Irish and contemporary songs, it featured the memorable “Tinkerman’s Daughter” and featured Brian Kennedy, piper John McSherry (Lúnasa, Coolfin), and accordionist Alan Kelly.

The Loose Connections’ second album, Loosen Up (Green Linnet, 1997) was another buoyant mix of originals and well-chosen contemporary ballads, like the gorgeous “Cloinhinne Winds” and Tom Waits’ “The Briar and the Rose,” a powerful a cappella duet with Fran McPhail of the Voice Squad. Once again the album featured first-class musicians, including guitarist Gavin Ralston (Mike Scott, Sharon Shannon) and Kilkenny accordion player Mick McAuley (now with Solas).

In 1999, Niamh took a bold step and returned to her roots with her first solo album, Blackbirds and Thrushes (Green Linnet) a collection of traditional Irish ballads gathered from over 15 years of Niamh’s singing repertoire. In her words, “these songs are living in me.” The album won instant acclaim as a welcome return to traditionalism. The Boston Globe declared that it “expressed the sorrow and longing of the Celtic soul more deeply than any within recent memory”, and Irish Music Magazine called it “simply magnificent traditional singing.”

Keeping in form, Niamh’s next CD In My Prime (Green Linnet 2000) was another collection of mostly traditional material, and again received widespread praise. Folk Roots named it one of the top albums of the year and The Irish Voice called the album “a must-have disc for lovers of Irish song.” It also saw the emergence of Niamh’s new accompanist, talented young guitarist Graham Dunne. The album was nominated for Album of the Year by BBC Radio 2 (UK) and the Association for Independent Music (US).

With Heart’s Desire the newest addition, it is a body of work that has proven Niamh Parsons one of the premier vocalists of her time and a keeper of the flame in Irish traditional song.

Quotes From the Press

“Simply magnificent traditional singing.” – Irish Music Magazine

“Let’s cut to the chase. Niamh Parsons has a drop-dead, stop-you-in-your-tracks, unbelievably gorgeous voice.” – Calgary Herald

“Niamh Parsons sings like an angel.” – Chicago Tribune
“It’s quite, quite wonderful, throw back the head stuff, utterly devoid of pretense or preciousness.” – Hot Press (Ireland)

“Parsons’ beautifully crafted phrases, sharp vocal control and soulful tone makes even the most melancholic song riveting.” – CMJ New Music Report

Two of New York’s premier Sligo-style fiddlers, Brian Conway and Tony DeMarco joined together in 1981 to record a single album: The Apple in Winter.

Conway is a Senior All-Ireland champion and both he and DeMarco are held in high regard for their respect for and mastery of the tradition of the American Sligo-style of ornamental fiddle playing made popular by artists such as Michael Coleman, Andy McGann, and Paddy Reynolds.

Vocalist Triona Ni Dhomhnaill of the Bothy Band formed the Touchstone in the early 1980s after immigrating to North Carolina. Made up of North American musicians Claudine Langille, Zan McLeod, and Mark Roberts, Touchstone wove threads of American bluegrass and old-time music Irish traditional music. The quartet recorded two albums, The New Land (Green Linnet, 1993) and Jealousy (Green Linnet, 1993).

Irish vocalist Susan McKeown has been called “the most strikingly original woman singer” in Celtic music by The Christian Science Monitor. Her extraordinary voice is a rare instrument: earthy, arresting, with an electrifying delivery. Whether singing her own songs with her acoustic-rock band The Chanting House or delving into the rich Irish and Scottish music traditions, McKeown sings with an honesty and passion unmistakably her own.

In recent years, McKeown’s voice and music have captured the attention of audiences and musicians alike. She was the guest of Natalie Merchant on the nationally broadcast PBS-TV program Sessions at West 54th, and also sings backing vocals on Merchant’s Live album (1999). Fairport Convention’s album The Wood and the Wire contains a version of the traditional song Western Wind which they learned from “the wonderful Susan McKeown.” Susan appears on Cathal McConnell’s latest release Long Expectant Comes at Last performing backing vocals alongside Richard Thompson and Linda Thompson. Susan has also recorded extensively with Scot fiddle master Johnny Cunningham, with whom she tours regularly.

Susan McKeown grew up in Dublin, Ireland, the youngest of five children. Her composer mother encouraged her early interest in music and theatre. She listened to religious and classical music as a child, but in her teenage years discovered Mary Margaret O’Hara, Michelle Shocked, and June Tabor. At age 15, she was selected for intensive study with Ireland’s leading opera trainer at Dublin’s Municipal College of Music, but left after a year to pursue rock, folk, jazz, and blues, often busking in the streets of Dublin.

Susan had already toured in Europe and performed on national TV in Ireland when she left Dublin in 1990 to take up a scholarship offered her by New York’s American Musical and Dramatic Academy. She quickly immersed herself in the East Village and downtown music scenes, and was one of the original performers at the legendary Sin-é Café. Soon she was headlining in clubs such as The Bottom Line, The Mercury Lounge and Fez. She now tours internationally with her group The Chanting House, or with Johnny Cunningham and Irish guitarist Aidan Brennan.

Moving to New York exposed Susan to a whole new range of musical possibilities and the opportunity to work with musicians from all over the world. “New York is an ideal place to record because there’s such a variety of musicians living here,” she says. But it’s also helped her focus on her own traditional heritage. “I’ve often heard other emigrants say they became more Irish when they left Ireland,” she says, “and it’s certainly true for me.”

Susan first came to the attention of American audiences when her song If I Were You was selected for the landmark 1993 album Straight Outta Ireland, a track which she performed with fiddler Eileen Ivers, and Solas’ Seamus Egan and guitarist John Doyle. From there, she began putting together plans for an album of her own original songs: Bones was released on Susan’s own label Sheila-na-Gig, in 1995, and on PRIME CD in 1996. A track from Bones was licensed for the Channel 4 documentary series The Irish Empire which recently aired in Ireland, the UK and Australia. A second track was licensed for the Putumayo album Women of the World: Celtic II.

In November1998 Susan participated in a tribute concert to Sandy Denny at Saint Ann’s in Brooklyn, performing the legendary Fairport Convention singer’s “Tam Lin” alongside such artists as Darius Rucker, Robin Hitchcock, and Mike Mills (REM). Rolling Stone wrote that “McKeown grabbed both song and audience by the throat, dragged them through heaven and hell and back again, and left the stage to the loudest applause heard all evening.” New York Newsday wrote “McKeown nearly walked away with her stunning rendition; the effect was electric.”

Susan’s first album of traditional music was 1998’s Bushes and Briars on Alula Records, which received wide critical acclaim. Her new album is Lowlands (GLCD1205), released in 2000 on Green Linnet, her first international release. Susan’s other albums include the collaboration CD Mother with Irish-American singer Cathie Ryan and pianist Robin Spielberg; and the seasonal record Through the Bitter Frost and Snow with bassist Lindsay Horner. (The duo performed their rendition of Auld Lang Syne on NPR’s All Things Considered on New Year’s Eve). Susan’s songs have also been heard on national television commercials for Audi, Jaguar and Oil of Olay.

Quotes From the Press

“This is the kind of music that will link Ireland’s musical past with its future.” – Time Magazine

“The most strikingly original contemporary woman singer working in the Celtic vein is Susan McKeown. Vocal genius. . . she possesses a voice of such purity and power…Her ’Bushes & Briars’ is a triumph…she radically breaks with tradition.” – The Christian Science Monitor

“A soulful singing feminist, McKeown blends progressive Irish folk music with a harder-edged, pop-rock sensibility. Her album ‘Bones’ is a stirring work of intense soul-searching.” – Los Angeles Times

“One of the most powerful and distinctive voices in Irish music.” – The Irish Voice

“Equal parts folk-flavored songwriter and alternative rock chanteuse, Susan McKeown’s debut album ’Bones’ is arrestingly original.” – The Boston Globe

“Susan McKeown goes beyond language and genre to sing a dialect of the heart.” – Boston Phoenix

“McKeown comes on like a force of nature: a tide of incantory verse and a voice that slays demons. . . there’s a stateliness in her delivery that suggests she’s in midnight communion with the long-departed spirit of Sandy Denny.” – Rhythm Music

“Bones could well become one of the essential progressive Irish albums.. The best Irish-American release of 1995 hands-down” – Irish America Magazine

“A lot of people think Irish music is wistful and melancholy. That’s one side of it, but there’s also a great, rough, resilient spirit in the music, an element of joy underlying even the most plaintive melody. I grew up listening to musicians with that spirit and I value it. So much in music today makes people passive, bored and boring: three things I never want to be.”

Kevin Burke needn’t worry. His sparkling, lyrical fiddle playing has earned him a reputation as one of the finest, most influential players in music today. From The Bothy Band to Patrick Street, he has defined Irish fiddling for a generation. His work with artists as disparate as Kate Bush, Arlo Guthrie and Christy Moore has given him an audience that not only spans continents, it defies attempts at categorization. Described as “one of the greatest Celtic fiddlers alive” by The New York Times, Burke was recognized with a National Heritage Fellowship Award by the National Endowment For the Arts in 2002, this country’s highest honor in the traditional arts. In 2005, he was named one of Irish America’s Top 100 by Irish America Magazine.

Born and raised in London, England, Burke picked up his first fiddle at age eight when his parents decided music studies were in order. “To this day I have no idea why they chose the fiddle, except that it’s popular in County Sligo, where the family comes from and where we spent our vacations,” he laughs. “For the next five years or so, I dutifully diddled around on it. Then I discovered Irish music. Suddenly I was hooked. I spent my teens wandering into pubs, waiting for a chance to sit in with the musicians.”

London in the 1960s was a vibrant musical scene for the Irish; emigrants could be heard playing the styles of Kerry, Sligo, Galway, Limerick and Clare. And Burke was listening. Though he counts such masters of the Sligo style as Michael Coleman, Paddy Killoran and Tom McGowan as primary influences, he also points to fiddlers Bobby Casey (County Clare) and Brendan McGlinchey (Ulster), and to a wealth of Irish musicians on the London scene as important in his development. “I had access to it all, whereas if I’d been living in Ireland, I might not have been so lucky.”

Good fortune aside, Kevin’s undeniable talents brought him to the attention of Arlo Guthrie in 1972, when he was invited to the States to play on Guthrie’s Last of the Brooklyn Cowboys. Shortly after, Christy Moore, the great Irish singer/songwriter, asked Burke to Ireland to play in his new band. He stayed with Moore two years before joining what would become one of the most influential Irish groups of all time, The Bothy Band.

Hailed as “the Yardbirds of Irish music,” the Bothy Band boasted some of the finest musicians in all of Ireland, including Matt Molloy (Chieftains), Mícheál Ó Domhnaill and Tríona Ní Domhnaill (Nightnoise), Dónal Lunny (Planxty) and uillean piper Paddy Keenan. Burke initially joined the band as a temporary replacement for fiddler Tommy Peoples, but his role soon become permanent. His elegant, impassioned fiddling was a cornerstone of the band’s legendary sound from 1976 until 1979.

During their years in the Bothy Band together, Burke and guitarist Míchéal O’Domhnaill discovered a rare musical rapport. When the band parted ways, the two men toured Europe and recorded a groundbreaking album, Promenade, which was awarded the “Grand Prix du Disque” at the 1980 Montreux Jazz Festival. They followed with Portland, named for the Oregon city where Burke has long resided.

In 1986, Burke joined an all-star cast of Irish musicians that included Andy Irvine and Jackie Daly for a tour that evolved into the legendary quartet Patrick Street. With Ged Foley on guitar and nine albums to their name, Patrick Street is one of the most powerful traditional groups in Irish music. Celtic Fiddle Festival is Kevin’s other current group, a dazzling pan-Celtic ensemble that he founded in 1993 with legendary Scottish fiddler Johnny Cunningham and Brittany’s Christian Lemaître. After Cunningham’s untimely passing in 2003, the young fiddler Andre Brunet from Quebeçois group La Bottine Souriante came on board, and the Fiddles released their fourth CD, Play On (2005, Green Linnet), dedicated to Johnny.

As if that weren’t enough, Kevin toured and recorded with bluegrass star Tim O’Brien and his acclaimed Irish-American group, The Crossing in 2001. Kevin also formed the group Open House during the 1990s, a critically-acclaimed project with American musicians Paul Kotapish, Mark Graham and dancer Sandy Silva. Open House released three CDs that explored music from all corners of the world.

Over the years, Burke has recorded a number of acclaimed solo albums in addition to those mentioned before, including his debut Sweeney’s Dream and If the Cap Fits. In Concert, which came out in 1999 on Green Linnet, was Burke’s first solo release in15 years, and features his inimitable In Concert fiddling on music drawn from throughout his remarkable career. The album was co-produced by noted Irish fiddler Martin Hayes, who also guests on three tracks.

“There are thousands of old tunes, good ones that haven’t been played in years,” concludes Burke. “When I find something I love, I play it. And when I find something I like, I bend it out of shape until I love it. Good music is good music. It should be heard.”