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Michael "Blackie" O'Connell  - Pipes

Michael is one of the most exciting uilleann pipers in Traditional Music. He was taught the uilleann pipes by the great Limerick piper Mickey Dunne. His influences are the playing of Paddy Keenan, who is a regular visitor to his home in Clare, Finbar Furey and the great Johnny Doran.

He has been playing the pipes from a young age and is currently living, and playing, at the heart of Irish music in County Clare. He regularly tours Europe, the USA and the Far East but is also very much at home at his local bars in Ennis or Doolin. At concerts and sessions Michael O'Connell performs with gusto, and audiences are swept away by his exuberant and fast flowing piping style.

 A regular guest of Na Píobairí Uilleann (uilleann pipes association), and the William Kennedy Piping Festival. He teaches and performs at the annual Catskills Irish Arts Week in New York, and the Doran Tionol, as well as being a full time tutor at the Irish World Academy of Music, University of Limerick.

 He has also has toured extensively with various dance troupes in the USA, China, Taiwan and Dubai, including on Broadway and in Carnegie Hall. He has performed with Paddy Keenan, Finbar Furey and the Chieftains. He is an ambassador for Irish tourism as part of the current worldwide internet and TV campaign by Tourism Ireland.

 In 2010 he released the album; “We were drinking and kissing the ladies”, in collaboration with the renowned concertina player Hugh Healy to great critical acclaim. He has now followed this with the 2014 release of ‘Friars Green’ a duet album with Irish Music stalwart Cyril O’Donoghue.

 2015 will see a number of new projects which will include collaboration with fiddle player Eoghan Neff (Anxo Lorenzo band) as well as some new working material for the ‘Blackie O’Connell Band’ following demand from two performances at the Doolin folk festival.

    

Kieran O’Hare - Pipes

 
 

Kieran O'Hare is a highly respected and sought-after performer of traditional Irish music on the uilleann pipes, concert flute, and tinwhistle. He was educated at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.

In 1994, Kieran received the honor of being the first American-born player of Irish music invited to perform in the annual 'Ace and Deuce of Piping' concert, held in Ireland's National Concert Hall. Since then, he has made countless appearances at festivals and concerts across Europe, North and South America, Japan, and China. Among the many artists with whom Kieran has performed, toured or recorded are Mick Moloney and The Greenfields of America; fiddlers Liz Carroll and Jerry Holland; baroque performers Ensemble Galilei; the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra; the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra; Bonnie Raitt; The Paul Winter Consort; Josh Groban; and Don Henley.

In 2002, Kieran appeared in a musical role in the Sam Mendes film Road to Perdition. In 2006-2007, Kieran was the featured uilleann pipes and tin whistle player on Broadway for the new musical The Pirate Queen, written by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg, and produced by John McColgan and Moya Doherty of Riverdance. In 2007-8, Kieran was a featured performer on the PBS special presentation ‘Celtic Origins’ with the Irish choral group ANÚNA. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2010 as a soloist with the New York Pops Orchestra under the baton of Steve Reineke.

Kieran is a highly respected master teacher of Irish music. In addition, he has extensive experience in designing music for the stage. For several years, he has collaborated extensively with his wife, the fiddle player Liz Knowles, to compose, arrange, and perform the music for large-scale European-based productions integrating traditional and contemporary Irish music with dance and song. Currently, they are co-musical and artistic directors in France for Fête de la St. Patrick, a presentation of the music and dance of Ireland and Brittany.

Kieran performs with the trio Open the Door for Three, with Liz Knowles and bouzouki player and singer Pat Broaders. He serves on the Board of Directors of Ná Píobairí Uilleann in Dublin, an organization dedicated to the preservation and promotion of uilleann piping worldwide. Kieran is also the founder, co-publisher, and editor of Éirways, a magazine about Irish culture and people at home and around the world.

 

www.openthedoorforthree.com

www.eirways.com
 
 
Liz Knowles - Fiddle
 
 

Liz Knowles has brought her distinctive sound—the fire and finesse of Irish fiddle music combined with the tonal richness of the classical violin—to concert stages and festivals across the world. Her auspicious beginnings as the fiddler for Riverdance and as soloist on the soundtrack for the film Michael Collins established her as a virtuosic and versatile performer, and she has since performed as soloist with such orchestras as The New York Pops and The Cincinnati Pops. Liz has been a member of the renowned Cherish the Ladies, played on Broadway with The Pirate Queen, traveled the world for over four years as Music Director and performer with the wildly popular Celtic Legends, and, today she performs with another all-star female super-group, the highly acclaimed String Sisters.

          Liz first distinguished herself as a violinist in New York City, performing in such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, and on Broadway, with such artists such as Marcus Roberts, the Bang-on-a-Can Orchestra, Bobby McFerrin, Paula Cole, Steve Reich, Eliot Goldenthal, Rachel Barton, Don Henley, and Tim O’Brien. It was also in New York that she discovered her true passion for Irish music. Today, she is well respected on both sides of the Atlantic as a player, composer, and arranger. Her compositions and arrangements of tunes and songs have been recorded and performed by John Whelan, Flook, Chicago’s Metropolis Symphony Orchestra, Liz Carroll, Beolach, J.P. Cormier, Michael Black, John Doyle, and Ensemble Galilei, and Martin Hayes, among many others.

          Liz is a well-known and sought-after teacher of Irish music. She teaches at many tionóls and week-long workshops across the US and in Ireland, and she is a regular at The Swannanoa Gathering for their Celtic and Fiddle weeks.

            Most recently, Liz co-produced an acclaimed album with fiddler Liz Carroll for the Art Institute of Chicago to accompany their special exhibition ‘Ireland: Crossroads of Art and Design’. Her ongoing project is the trio Open the Door for Three, with piper Kieran O'Hare and bouzouki player Pat Broaders.

 

www.lizknowles.com

www.openthedoorforthree.com

 

 

Michelle Stewart - Bodhrán

Born and raised in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada where she was immersed in Celtic music from a young age, Michelle’s passion has always been drumming. 

 She teaches a variety of percussion, (pipe band snare, bass, tenor, drumkit and bodhrán) and has been teaching at Morrison’s Academy and Ardvreck School since 2002 and the prestigous Glenalmond College since 2014. 

Michelle’s drumming career started 35 years ago with the Sprigs Of Heather Pipe Band as a snare drummer. She was selected to be part of the1987 Canada Games Pipe Band and recorded her first album with them. 

 At the age of sixteen she joined the Halifax Police Pipe Band (now the 78th Highlanders Halifax Citadel) which involved regular ten-hour round trip drives for band practice. In the mid-90‘s Michelle moved to Scotland to play snare with the Grade 1 Vale Of Atholl Pipe Band under five-time World Drum Corps Champion Jim King. During that time she also recorded the album ‘Live ‘N Well’ with the Vale. 

Michelle has been teaching the Bodhrán summer course at the Gaelic College in Cape Breton for almost twenty years. She has taught through the Royal Scottish Academy of Music And Drama, the Pacific Institute Of Piping and Celtic Performing Arts and numerous music camps throughout the UK and North America. 

Michelle is the creator and founder of BodhránExpert.com and her YouTube videos teaching bodhrán are watched in every one of the 194 countries in the world. Her online course, Bodhrán Expert Platinum Membership, is one of the first musical instrument online video tutorial courses of its kind that makes the student feel like she’s actually in the room with them, taking them by the hand through their learning journey. 

Michelle lives in Crieff, Perthshire, Scotland with her husband of nineteen years, Scottish musician and composer, Mark Stewart, along with their eleven year old son, Cameron, who is also a piper. 

When they lived in Nova Scotia Mark and Michelle taught piping and drumming all over Eastern Canada and had their own bodhrán manufacturing company, Cape Breton Bodhráns.

Brid Dunne - Fiddle

Bríd Dunne is an accomplished fiddler from Co. Limerick. She began to play the fiddle at 4, and learned her music from her father Mickey Dunne, the well-known piper from Limerick who is part of a rich cultural heritage of travelling musicians. For generations, the Dunne’s traveled the country playing fiddles and pipes at any social events (football matches, markets days, fairs), and inspired many well-known musicians. Bríd has performed across Ireland, North America and Europe with many formidable artists, and is a regular session musician in her home city of Limerick. In 2005, she recorded a CD with her father and sister (Niamh Dunne of Beoga) called Legacy, which celebrated the rich musical heritage in her family. Bríd graduated with a First Class Honours Masters in Traditional Irish Music Performance from the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance in 2008. Bríd is also a well-respected classical violinist; she received a high achievers award from the Associated Board of the Royal Irish Schools of Music in 2002, and currently performs with the University of Limerick Orchestra. Bríd is an occupational therapist and PhD researcher and combines her professional career with her interest in Irish traditional music. Bríd’s fiddle playing is recognised for its ‘tonal quality’ (Irish Music Review) and was described by Finbar Fury as having a ‘superb style of playing the fiddle she is without a second thought, a gifted player of Irish music'. 

 

Torrin Ryan - Whistle

Torrin began playing music at the age of 6 on the recorder, and soon switched over to traditional Irish music on the tin whistle at age 9. After seeing master uilleann piper Cillian Vallely perform with Lúnasa, he began to learn the pipes himself.
He has competed in numerous Mid-Atlantic Fleadhs where he’s won first place on both whistle and pipes several times. In Ireland, he has competed at the All-Ireland Fleadh held in Tullamore and Derry and is the 2013 All-Ireland Uilleann Pipes Slow Airs champion. At home, Torrin previously attended the Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann Boston Music School where he is now a teacher, is a regular at the Northeast Uilleann Pipers Tionól, and is a member of the Boston Uilleann Piper’s Club.
He has been influenced by many of the different styles of piping that were prominent throughout history as well as many modern and younger pipers, and likes to incorporate what he has learned from historical recordings and modern pipers into his own playing.
Torrin’s never-ending studies of Irish traditional music include examining mediums such as antique cylinder recordings, old vinyl records, numerous old and new books of tunes, as well as personal meetings and sessions with many local and far away masters of the tradition. He’s also had valuable opportunities to study the playing and maintaining of the pipes through several events like Catskills Irish Arts week, the Northeast Tionól held in New York, and the Swannanoa Gathering in North Carolina.


Elizabeth MacDonald – Set Dancing


A life-long dancer, Elizabeth MacDonald turned to Irish set dancing while living in Toronto in the late 80’s. She subsequently studied in Ireland and the US under such noted set dance teachers as Pat Murphyand Connie Ryan, and traditional step dancer Patrick O’Dea. 

Since 1992 – with the exception of a four-year European hiatus – Elizabeth has instructed the Scaip na Cleiti Irish Set Dancers in Halifax. She’s also conducted workshops and performed throughout Maritime Canada. While living in Europe from 2003-2007, Elizabeth taught the Brussels Irish set dancing group, and led workshops and ceilis in Belgium and northern France. 

Elizabeth’s contribution to the promotion and preservation of Irish culture were recognized byComhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann with her induction into the Canadian Eastern Region Music Hall of Fame (2000), and receipt of the Irish Heritage scholarship (1998). She’s also written articles on traditional set and step dancing for Celtic Heritage magazine and Set Dancing News. She also has articles included in Pat Murphy's books The Flowing Tide and Apples in Winter. Originally trained as a Highland dancer, Elizabeth was accredited as a Member of theBritish Association of Teachers of Dancing in 1979. 

 

Paddy Keenan - Reed Making and Advanced Masterclass Piping

Paddy Keenan is one of Ireland's leading uilleann pipers, and possibly the best of the best performing today. A fellow musician who played with Keenan in the Bothy Band compared his outstanding skill and talent on the pipes to Jimi Hendrix's legendary ability with a guitar.

Keenan was born into a musical family in County Meath, Ireland. Brother Johnny Keenan made a name for himself as a fine banjoist, and his father crafted uilleann pipes. His grandfather and father both played the instrument, and Keenan began playing when he was ten years old. Four years later, barely into his teens, he performed at Dublin's Gaiety Theatre. He went on to join a family band named the Pavees. The togetherness didn't last when Keenan, at the age of 17, discovered the blues and headed to Europe. The piper started performing there and in England.

Ireland lured him back within several years. With Michael O Dhomhnaill on guitar and Triona Ni Dhomhnaill on keyboards, Keenan started to perform in the Dublin region. The small group soon expanded to include Matt Mollov on flute, Paddy Glackin on fiddle, Tony MacMahon on accordion, andDonal Lunny on guitar. They dubbed their band Seachtar, which means seven in English, which was the number of players within their group.

With Seachtar, Keenan played concerts in Dublin and across Ireland, but the band soon unraveled. MacMahon left, followed by Glackin. Tommy Peoples, a fiddler from Donegal, came aboard and the group of musicians renamed themselves the Bothy Band. Kevin Burke later stepped in to take over on fiddle.

The group grew in stature and influence, drawing attention to Keenan's virtuosity. While Lunny offered the Hendrix comparison, others equated Keenan's unfettered and animated improvisational piping with jazz  legend John Coltrane.

 Paddy's style has continued to mature in the intervening years since the break-up of The Bothy Band as he has pursued a solo career. Recently he has played at several festivals and weekends, including Gaelic Roots I and II at Boston College; the 1995 Eigse na Laoi at University College, Cork; Green Linnet's Irish Music Party of the Year; and twice at the Washington Irish Folk Festival at Wolf Trap, including a concert performance there in 1995 with accordion player James Keane and guitarist John Doyle which was videotaped and has been broadcast worldwide. He has played the Stonehill College Festival in Boston and the Philadelphia Ceili Group’s Irish Music and Dance Festival, as well as various concerts, benefits and tionols (piping festivals) around the US, in Canada and in Ireland, and even plays an occasional ceili (dance).

 

 
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Last modified: 02/27/16