Comprised of Lindsay Straw (guitar, bouzouki, vocals), Dan Accardi (accordion, concertina, fiddle), Armand Aromin (fiddle, English concertina, vocals) and Ben Gagliardi (concertina, harmonica, vocals), The Ivy Leaf sings rich, powerful songs and plays bouncy, danceable tunes, highlighting the best of traditional music from Ireland, England, Scotland, and America.
First formed to explore the interconnected streams of folk music that cross the northern Atlantic, the band interprets a thorough and diverse repertoire – often culled from print collections and field recordings of the 19th and early 20th centuries – through a lens of ringing voices, lyrical strings, and punchy free reeds.
Louise is an artist and musician who grew up in Orkney, a group of islands in the north of Scotland. She graduated from the Glasgow School of Art in 2011 with an honours degree in Visual Communications, specialising in photography.
Growing up on a farm, she has always been inspired and influenced by the landscape and nature around her and feels privileged to be able to use her creativity and love for art and music to make her living. Louise shoots mainly on 35mm film using an Olympus OM2 once belonging to her father. She uses natural light to capture images which are honest and organic.
As a fiddle player, Louise enjoys a wide variety of music, but mostly plays and writes folk and traditional Scottish music. After being awarded a place and a scholarship to study at Berklee College of Music, Louise traveled to Boston in September 2015 to take some time to explore other genres of music.
Between her studies, Louise has been concentrating on her project ‘Out of My Own Light’ exploring her family ties to Canada and her own connection to her late Grandmother, Margaret Sarah Tait.
The Fretless has toured and recorded together since 2012, winning multiple Canadian Folk Music Awards, Western Canadian Awards, and most recently, a JUNO Award for Instrumental Album of the Year.
The Fretless is a new approach to folk music that is quickly gaining high acclaim around the world. This unique band is taking string music to fascinating places as it transforms fiddle tunes and folk melodies into intricate, beautiful, high-energy arrangements.
Called “One of the brightest fiddlers around today” by WGBH radio host Brian O’Donovan, multistyle violinist and champion fiddler MARI BLACK has been delighting audiences across the country and around the world with her energetic playing, sparkling stage presence, and dazzlingly virtuosic fiddling.
Raised on a rich blend of traditional musical styles, Mari made her entrance onto the international stage when she became Scotland’s Glenfiddich Fiddle Champion, 2-time U.S. National Scottish Fiddle Champion, and 2-time Canadian Maritime Fiddle champion, all within a three-year period. Ever since then, she has been spreading her love for dance-based music, performing as a featured artist at Celtic festivals, celebrated folk venues, world music concert series, and acclaimed classical concert venues including Carnegie Hall. Mari has appeared with such diverse artists as Irish fiddle champion Liz Carroll, Americana master Mark O’Connor, and jazzman Willie Ruff. Her music has been heard on the BBC Radio Scotland’s “Take the Floor”, Fox and CBS morning news, NPR’s “Here and Now,” WFMT Chicago’s “Folk Stage”, WGBH Boston’s “A Celtic Sojourn”, and on dozens of other music radio shows across the country.
Mari’s passion for diverse traditional musics extends far beyond the concert stage, as reflected in her work as a teacher, performance coach, dancer, competition judge, and musical ambassador dedicated to connecting people through music. Known as a master teacher with a playful and unconventional approach to helping students expand their horizons, Mari has taught workshops at the Acadia Trad School, the Swannanoa Gathering, the Jink & Diddle School of Scottish Fiddling, the Mark O’Connor fiddle camp, the Tanglewood Festival, the Yale School of Music, and more. Currently touring nationally with her trio and a new duo with world accordion champion Cory Pesaturo.
Eamon O’Leary is a songwriter from New York’s Lower East Side, originally from Dublin, Ireland. ‘All Souls’, his first album for Reveal Records (out 29 June), was entirely self-written and recorded with Jefferson Hamer (Anais Mitchell), and Benjamin Lazar Davis (Cuddle Magic, Joan As Police Woman, Okkervil River). A beautiful, sparse album of darkness and light.
‘All Souls’ is ten songs that highlight O’Leary’s musical talent and his knack for writing heartfelt, poetic lyrics. Like Leonard Cohen, Smog, Jackson C. Frank and Palace before him, this is music from deep within the mind and from the soul, personal stories wrapped in extremely delicate layers of sound. Eamon O’Leary has spent twenty years in New York developing his songcraft, appearing live and collaborating with esteemed artists such as Sam Amidon, Beth Orton, Bonnie Prince Billy, Anais Mitchell, Anna and Elizabeth, Martin Hayes (The Gloaming) Jefferson Hamer, Bridget Kearney (Lake Street Dive) and Benjamin Lazar Davis. ‘all souls’ is released on June 29th LP / CD / DL on Reveal Records.
The Fire is a high energy pure-drop Scottish music band that features world class fiddling in combination with bagpipes, guitar, bodhran, whistle, and bouzouki.
The group includes, International Scottish Fiddle Champion Rebecca Lomnicky, multi-instrumentalist David Brewer of the popular Celtic band Molly’s Revenge, and Adam Hendey on guitar and bouzouki. Members of the trio have each spent copious amounts of time delving into the traditions of their respective instruments, with Rebecca and David having additionally lived and studied in both Edinburgh and the highlands of Scotland.
Together, The Fire performs captivating Scottish music which bridges the gap between the fiddle and bagpipe music of Scotland—two worlds united, into a heartfelt and rousing musical experience. Between their entertaining and informative stage banter, vast array of instrument combinations and extensive repertoire, including everything from soaring slow airs to intricately arranged dance tunes, these charismatic performers will leave you on your feet with your hands together.
The Fire has headlined main stages at Celtic festivals such as The KVMR Grass Valley Celtic Festival, The Pleasanton Scottish Highland Games, The Utah Scottish Association Highland Games, The Portland Highland Games, The Northwest Folklife Festival, The Yachats Celtic Festival, The Topanga Fiddle Festival, and has performed at a variety of venues throughout the United States, United Kingdom, and Ireland. The Fire is currently based out of Santa Cruz, California, and has recorded two albums together.
Ground-breaking, chart-topping, genre-bending, globetrotting, instantly enthralling… it’s little wonder that Talisk rank highly amongst the most in-demand folk-based groups to emerge from Scotland in the last decade and more.
Mohsen Amini (BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards’ Musician of the Year 2018), Graeme Armstrong and Benedict Morris (BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year 2019) fuse concertina, guitar and fiddle to produce a truly innovative, multi-layered signature that has captivated audiences around the globe. At its core, three seemingly acoustic instruments – but in the hands of three master craftsmen; one unmistakable, bold sound and a captivating live show.
Alongside extensive touring, Talisk have stacked up major awards for their explosively energetic, artfully woven sound – including Folk Band of the Year at the BBC Alba Scots Trad Music Awards, a BBC Radio 2 Folk Award, and the Belhaven Bursary for Innovation. Appearances at leading festivals across multiple continents have amassed a die-hard following – including closing out Saturday night’s main stage at the 2019 Cambridge Folk Festival, Denmark’s Tønder Festival, the Rainforest World Music Festival in Malaysian Borneo, WOMADs UK, Chile and Las Palmas, Edmonton Folk Festival, Milwaukee Irish Festival, three back-to-back years at the Philadelphia Folk Festival, and six appearances at Glasgow’s Celtic Connections.
Following their critically acclaimed debut, Abyss, Talisk’s sophomore album, Beyond, quickly amassed five star reviews and rose to No.1 in the iTunes world music charts upon its late 2018 release. With streaming figures into multiple millions, and new music on the horizon in 2022, audiences worldwide are hotly anticipating the latest chapter from a group lauded by leading world music magazine Songlines as: “incredibly infectious and endearing… fresh, invigorating, accomplished.
Martin Hayes is regarded as one of the most significant talents to emerge in the world of Irish traditional music. His unique sound, his mastery of his chosen instrument – the violin – his acknowledgement of the past and his shaping of the future of the music, combine to create a formidable artistic intelligence.
He has drawn inspiration from many musical genres, but remains grounded in the music he grew up with in East County Clare. He has a unique ability to place the tradition within a wider contemporary context, creating a unique and insightful interpretation of Irish music.
Martin Hayes’ soulful interpretations of traditional Irish music are recognized the world over for their exquisite musicality and irresistible rhythm. He has toured and recorded with guitarist Dennis Cahill for over twenty years, and has collaborated with extraordinary musicians in the classical, folk and contemporary music worlds such as Bill Frisell, Ricky Skaggs, Jordi Savall, Brooklyn Rider and the Irish Chamber Orchestra, RTE Concert Orchestra as well as many of the greatest traditional Irish musicians over the past thirty years. Martin has contributed music, both original and traditional arrangements to modern dance, theatre, film and television. He has performed on stage with Sting and Paul Simon and recently recorded with Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project. He is the artistic director of Masters of Tradition, an annual festival in Bantry, Co. Cork and a co- curator for the Marble Sessions at the Kilkenny Arts Festival.
Hailed by John Renbourn as “the best Celtic guitarist in the world” Tony McManus has been listed as one of the 50 transcendent guitarists of all time by Guitar Player Magazine. Conjuring a unique but universal language from that most ubiquitous of instruments, the acoustic guitar, Tony McManus has both extended and transcended the parameters of contemporary Celtic music. Ranked by peers and predecessors alike alongside the guitar world’s all-time greats, his fiendishly dexterous, dazzlingly original playing draws on traditions from the entire Celtic diaspora – Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, Galicia, Asturias, Cape Breton, Quebec – along with still further-ranging flavours, such as jazz and eastern European music. Long applauded for his uncanny ability to transpose the delicate, complex ornamentation characteristic of traditional bagpipe or fiddle tunes – even the phrasing of a Gaelic song – onto his own six strings, McManus is increasingly being acknowledged also as a pioneering figure in bridging the realms of Celtic music and other guitar genres.
Tony has since worked with, among many others, Dougie McLean, Phil Cunningham, Liam O’Flynn, Martin Simpson, Kevin Burke, Alison Brown, Natalie MacMaster, and Mairead ní Mhoanaigh. He has been invited to not only Folk and Celtic Festivals, but also guitar specific Festivals around the world in Italy, France, Australia, and the UK, and has been invited annually to the Chet Atkins Festival in Nashville. Tony has performed and taught at the Ellnora Guitar Festival in one of Illinois’s most prestigious venues, the Krannert Center, with the likes of Pat Metheny, Kaki King, Molly Tuttle, and Steve Dawson. He is a signature artist for PRS Guitars in Maryland, and has performed at their venue with Carlos Santana, among others.
Irish fiddle great Kevin Burke celebrates his new CD “An Evening with Kevin Burke: Tunes & Stories” with a unique solo performance at Passim. Recorded in Ireland, Philadelphia, and Kevin‘s adopted hometown of Portland, Oregon, the album’s exceptional fiddle music and engaging stories capture the charm and intimacy of this renowned fiddler’s solo appearances.
One of Irish music’s most beloved players, Burke is a master of the highly ornamented Sligo style of Irish fiddling. A native of London, England, Burkeinherited his love of Irish music from his parents who had emigrated from Sligo County, Ireland. His music career began when he moved to Ireland in 1974 and joined the seminal Irish group The Bothy Band. Since then, Burke has worked with many great artists including Arlo Guthrie, Kate Bush, Tim O’Brien, Christy Moore, Dervish, and Lunasa, and formed the bands Celtic Fiddle Festival, Patrick Street, and Open House. He is a recipient of America’s highest honor in the traditional arts, the NEA National Fellowship Award.
