Artist Category: Trad | Page 12

Bolahenk Trio

Classical, Folk and Dance Music From Where the Sun Rises. Anatolia, derives from the Greek word anatolḗ, which means ‘where the sun rises’. Bolahenk Trio will be presenting classical, folk and dance music from Anatolia, modern day Turkey.

CEREN TÜRKMENOĞLU

Raised in the Western classical music tradition, Ceren Türkmenoğlu is a violinist who is always aiming to engage other genres of music as much as possible in her repertoire and expand her musical language with the music of other traditions, especially her own, Turkish Classical Music. She has been a member of Ankara State Opera and Ballet Orchestra and Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra in Turkey and since January 2017 she enjoys continuing her performances in Boston as a recitalist, chamber and orchestra musician both in classical music and Turkish traditional music.

VOLKAN EFE

Efe performed with various Turkish Music Ensembles in Washington, DC and Chicago before moving to Boston. He performs with Orkestra Marhaba and he is also a member of Cambridge Musiki Cemiyeti, where he studies various forms of Ottoman music as well as traditional instruments such as tanbur, kemençe and ney.

MICHAEL K. HARRIST

Performs and works with artists in a wide array of world traditions including Turkish art music, Hindustani music, Jazz, Western art music and American roots music. He has performed throughout North America, Europe and Turkey with various ensembles including Ameranouche, Cesni Trio, Ross Daly and Kelly Thoma, Sol & Kiel, Capillary Action and the Labyrinth Modal Music Orchestra. Michael teaches workshops and private lessons in world music traditions (primarily Turkish makam and Hindustani raga), monophonic and polyphonic composition and instrumental practice and performance.

Neil Pearlman

Multi-instrumentalist, producer, step dancer and host of the TradCafe podcast, Neil Pearlman is a vital and distinctive voice in contemporary folk music. Described as “a tremendous pianist” on BBC Radio Scotland and “a force to be reckoned with” by WGBH’s Brian O’Donovan, Neil is best known for his groundbreaking approach to the piano in Celtic music. Motivated by a deep musical curiosity and a love of collaboration, his playing is continually evolving and spontaneous without losing its roots in the traditional piano styles of Atlantic Canada, New England and Scotland. He has appeared internationally at major festivals such as the Newport Folk Festival, Celtic Connections in Glasgow, Celtic Colours in Cape Breton and the Orkney Folk Festival and has recorded or performed with luminaries of traditional folk music including Natalie MacMaster, Darol Anger, Seamus Egan and Alasdair Fraser.
Neil’s deep love of the Gaelic music traditions has seen him welcomed into spaces that few other Americans have been. He was selected for the 2025 Shannon Residency at Beinn Mhabu in Cape Breton and has performed and guest lectured at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at University of Limerick, Ireland and the National Centre of Excellence in Traditional Music in Plockton, Scotland. His first solo piano album Refractions features frequently on BBC Radio nan Gàidheal and BBC Radio Scotland and his 2020 release with Shetland fiddler Kevin Henderson received 5 stars from Scotland’s national newspaper The Scotsman.
In addition to touring regularly with Kevin Henderson, the Pine Tree Flyers, and as a solo pianist, Neil teaches at festivals throughout North America and Europe and has guest lectured at Berklee College of Music, Northeastern University and the aforementioned University of Limerick. He co-directs an annual St. Patrick’s Day concert with Katie McNally at Groton Hill Music Center and releases podcasts and video collaborations with musicians from around the world through his production company TradCafe.

Katie McNally

Katie McNally grew up playing Scottish and Cape Breton music near Boston, Massachusetts and currently tours with her own projects, Fàrsan, Pine Tree Flyers, and the Katie McNally Trio. A member of the cross-genre fiddle supergroup, Childsplay, Katie has also toured with Karan Casey, John Whelan, and Galician bagpiper Carlos Núñez.

Now More Than Ever was recorded with the guidance of producer Anna Massie (Blazin’ Fiddles) and released Dec. 4, 2020. Her 2016 album, The Boston States, which explores the historic ties between her hometown of Boston, MA and Cape Breton, has been featured on NPR (The World, Thistle and Shamrock) and was hailed as “one of the best modern Cape Breton records of the past ten years” by Irish Music Magazine.

She has appeared at Celtic Colours, Celtic Connections, Newport Folk Festival, and The Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, as well as countless folk venues throughout North America and Europe. In addition to her busy touring schedule, she is the artistic director of the Boston States Fiddle Camp and is a devoted educator who teaches regularly at fiddle camps across the country and gives private lessons at her home in Portland, Maine.

Darol Anger

Grammy- Nominated Freestyle Fiddler, composer, producer and educator, Darol Anger is at home in a number of musical genres, some of which he helped to invent. Exceptional among modern fiddlers for his versatility and depth, Anger has helped drive the evolution of the contemporary string band through his involvement with numerous pathbreaking ensembles such as his Republic Of Strings, the Turtle Island String Quartet, the David Grisman Quintet, Montreux, his Duo with Mike Marshall, Mr Sun, and others.

He has performed and taught all over the world with musicians such as Dr. Billy Taylor, Bela Fleck, Bill Evans, Edgar Meyer, Bill Frisell, Tony Rice, Tim O’Brien, The Anonymous 4, Marin Alsop and the Cabrillo Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony, Bruce Molsky, Mark O’Connor, and Stephane Grappelli. Today Darol can be heard on NPR’s “Car Talk” theme every week, along with Earl Scruggs, David Grisman and Tony Rice. Alumni of his touring band The Republic Of Strings include Brittany Haas, Rushad Eggleston, Jeremy Kittel, Sara Watkins, Tristan Clarridge, Mike Block, Scott Law, Gabriel Witcher, Joy Adams, Maeve Gilchrist, Scott Nygaard, and Joe K Walsh.

Darol was also the violinist on the phenomenally popular Sim City computer games. In addition to performing all over the world, he has recorded and produced scores of important recordings since 1977, is a MacDowell and UCross Fellow, and has received numerous composers’ residencies and grants. He has been a featured soloist on dozens of recordings and motion picture soundtracks.

An Associate Professor Emeritus at the prestigious Berklee School of music, he now runs an ambitious online fiddle school at ArtistWorks.com. He is interested in 5-string violin technology and has built 2.

Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill

Irish fiddle virtuoso Martin Hayes and American guitarist Dennis Cahill possess a rare musical kinship, ranking them among the most memorable partnerships of our era. Together they have garnered international renown for taking traditional music to the very edge of the genre, holding listeners spellbound with their slow-building, fiery performances.

Hayes is a master of the slow, lyrical County Clare style of fiddling which he learned from his well-known father, P Joe Hayes. He is regarded as one of the most extraordinary talents to emerge in the world of Irish traditional music. Cahill is a sublime guitarist whose spare, essential accompaniment is acknowledged as a major breakthrough in the Irish tradition. He was raised in Chicago by parents from the Dingle Peninsula, County Kerry. The two met in Chicago in the 1980s, and after early years as an experimental Irish fusion group they formed their groundbreaking duo. Martin and Dennis have gone on to tour the world, appearing at major concert halls including Lincoln Center and the Royal Albert Hall, and have three acclaimed albums on Green Linnet/Compass Records.

After more than twenty years at the forefront of traditional music, Hayes and Cahill are still breaking new ground. As The Irish Times declares, “If your live music rations were limited to a single concert in the entire year, you’d be either crazy or foolish not to pass that precious time in the company of Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill.”

Wall of Grass

Wall of Grass is an interactive folk collaborative that performs in the spirit of contributing to the greater good and raises much needed funds by targeting community service organizations in need. All shows are produced by Wall of Grass founder and percussionist Joe Donnelly. Original Wall of Grass-er Catharine David has lovingly categorized the band’s genre as “cluster-folk.”

Oliver the Crow

“Within a week of meeting each other, we began mapping musical ideas and plans to record an EP,” cellist Kaitlyn Raitz says of her first encounter with fiddler Ben Plotnick, before they even lived in the same city.

The term mapping is spot on. Each of the ten original songs on Kaitlyn and Ben’s first full-length offering unlocks a different musical world. Oliver the Crow navigates effortlessly between the gravitas of chamber composition, the longing of folk music, the near dreamlike quality of atmospheric sound art, and above all, pop music’s candy-sweet escape.

Kaitlyn and Ben’s chameleon-like ability to skip between genres stems from their roots as classically-trained performers (Kaitlyn has a masters degree in classical cello from McGill University and Ben has performed as a soloist with the Calgary Philharmonic) but also from their love of bluegrass, gypsy jazz, everything from Hank Williams to Prince. Raitz is a founding member of folk duo Bride & Groom, tours with The Bombadils and has performed everywhere from Carnegie Hall to the Station Inn. Ben is a primary member of the JUNO award-winning folk string quartet, The Fretless, and has contributed to hundreds of recordings as one of North America’s elite fiddle players.

One thing is certain: Oliver the Crow cannot be defined by genre, and yet is timeless, indelible. Kaitlyn and Ben have mastered the art of anchoring a folk song in epic pop sensibility, and it is so fun to hear them smash all the rules.

Hanneke Cassel Trio

Effervescent and engaging, Boston-based fiddler Hanneke Cassel’s fiddle music fuses influences from the Isle of Skye and Cape Breton with Americana grooves and musical innovations. She has performed and traveled across North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. Hanneke’s music is a blend of the contemporary and traditional, described by the Boston Globe as “exuberant and rhythmic, somehow wild and innocent, delivered with captivating melodic clarity and an irresistible playfulness.”

The Hanneke Cassel Band features Keith Murphy on guitar/vocals and alternating string players Jenna Moynihan on 5-string fiddle/vocals and Tristan Clarridge on cello. Newfoundland-born guitarist Keith Murphy began absorbing his native musical languages – folksongs, ballads and dance music – from an early age. A proficient multi-instrumentalist, he has long applied considerable energy to the rhythmic side of music, becoming a valued band member and highly sought-after sideman on guitar, mandolin and foot percussion. Jenna Moynihan is regarded as one of the best in the new generation of fiddle players. Versatile and inventive, her fiddling style draws strongly from the Scottish tradition, but is in no way bound by it. An assistant professor at Berklee College of Music, Jenna performs as part of a duo with cutting edge harpist Mairi Chaimbeul and is the regular fiddler for the Seamus Egan Project.

Together, the Hanneke Cassel Band creates a cutting-edge acoustic sound that retains the integrity and spirit of the Scottish tradition.

Kotoko Brass Band

Ben Paulding is an American percussionist who extensively lived in Kumasi, Ghana, drumming on national television for the Ghanaian President and the country’s top traditional chiefs and queen-mothers. In West Africa, Ben had over 200 performances with internationally acclaimed drum and dance ensembles including the Centre for National Culture, the Ashanti King’s Fontomfrom Ensemble, and the Nsuase Kete Group. Also immersed in study, he spent two years apprenticing in Ashanti drumming under royal musician Emmanuel Attah Poku. Ben has pioneered the adaptation of Kete rhythms onto the drumset, and worked Attah Poku to create an original arrangement of Kete for drumset and traditional percussion.

In the US, Ben is the Drum Leader of David Locke and Attah Poku’s Agbekor Drum and Dance Society, Boston’s oldest Ghanaian drum and dance group. Ben has played drumset and percussion with Jerry Leake’s Cubist world/rock/fusion band, Marcus Santos’ Bloco AfroBrazil, Mohammad Alidu’s Bizung Family Band, and with contemporary jazz pianist Kelly Sciandra (CandyRat Records).

Yann Falquet

Yann Falquet is a very active and creative acoustic guitar player on the Québécois music scene. He has explored many styles of music and completed a Bachelors degree in Jazz. Since then, he has developed a personal guitar style for Québec folk music, inspired by the playing of the accompanists of different cultures (Brittany, Scandinavia, Ireland, North America).

His involvement in the province’s traditional music scene has brought Yann to perform on numerous recordings, and to tour regularly throughout Canada, the U.S., Europe and Australia with his main project Genticorum. He also toured for three years with the award winning Celtic and world group The McDades.

Yann has taught his guitar style at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance in Limerick, at the Goderich Celtic College as well as for Alasdair Fraser’s Fiddle Train and Sierra Fiddle Camp.