The Piper's Hut Concert Series

2008

Ged Foley

http://www.gedfoley.com

Location

TBA

TBA

With his powerful tune accompaniments and delicate melody playing, it is easy to see why reviewers and audiences agree that Ged Foley is an extraordinary musician. Growing up in County Durham in the northeast of England, Ged (Gerard) absorbed the area’s rich tradition of folk song and dance music. It was there that he learned to play mandolin and Northumbrian Smallpipes (the bellows-blown bagpipe native to that part of England), which he no longer plays, and began to develop his extraordinary guitar style. At first he teamed up with singer-songwriter Jez Lowe and toured the British Folk scene. Several years with Scotland’s Battlefield Band followed. He toured with them throughout Europe and North America before returning home to co-found The House Band with Chris Parkinson. This saw the start of a long period of recording and touring which has taken him all over the globe. Alongside his House Band duties, in 1994, Ged was asked to take over the guitarist’s role in Irish “supergroup” Patrick Street with Kevin Burke, Andy Irvine and Jackie Daly. In 1999 he formed the duo Foley & Jones with fiddle player Sandy Jones. Two years later he became the accompanist for unique trio of fiddlers, The Celtic Fiddle Festival, now consisting of Kevin Burke, Christian Lemaître, and André Brunet. The year 2002 saw another significant change in Ged’s career when for two years he became Artistic Director of the Catskills Irish Arts Week based in E. Durham NY. This is a week long teaching festival covering all aspects of Irish traditional music, dance and arts.

When time allows, Ged also plays fiddle in the Midwest based Ceili band Tessera, teaches, and produces records. He does duo work with Kevin Burke in and out of the US, and also with John Carty. He is always in demand as a session musician. Ged has played and/or recorded with Kevin Burke, Liz Carroll, Paddy Keenan, Kieran O’Hare & Liz Knowles, Andrew McNamara & Patrick Ourceau, Larry Nugent, Mark Roberts, John Skelton, John Carty, Michael Cooney and Paul Smyth. In addition to his considerable instrumental acumen, Ged is also a fine singer. whose choice of songs, though often unorthodox, is always successful. A consummate musician and extraordinary entertainer, Ged Foley always gets it just right.

After many years of living in Athens Ohio, where he has twice been recognized by the Ohio Arts Council as a Master Artist, Ged and the family are now residing in Ireland.

Norah Rendell and Brian Miller

www.myspace.com/norahirendell

Location

Techline
24 East Green Street
Champaign, IL

TBA

In the Fall of 2005, Vancouver singer and flute player Norah Rendell and Twin Cities guitarist Brian Miller found themselves both living in Ireland in search of a deeper understanding of the traditional Irish music they had fallen in love with back home. Their first performances as a duo were a hit with the Irish. The Munster Express wrote that their music can “bring sunlight into your heart and set your feet a dancing.” Now based in the Twin Cities, Norah and Brian have launched a debut album of gorgeous traditional and contemporary folk songs and driving Irish dance tunes, Wait There Pretty One.

Norah Rendell sings and plays Irish flute and whistle “with a degree of style and sensitivity envied by many” says Tim Carroll of FolkWords. In Canada, Norah has performed live on the CBC and at the Mission Folk Festival, the Rogue Folk Club and venues throughout British Columbia and Alberta as a founding member of Canadian roots band Cleia. In 2005, Norah was awarded a grant from the Canada Council for Performing Arts to study traditional flute and singing in Ireland. She kept busy, earning an MA in Irish traditional music from the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance in between island hopping excursions to such venues as the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Sidmouth Folk Festival with the UK/Ireland-based band The Outside Track. Since relocating to Minneapolis, Norah has joined the ultratraditional Doon Ceili Band led by County Offaly’s Paddy O’Brien.

Esteemed Irish music critic Earle Hitchner writes that “the backing of [Brian] Miller on guitar flexes not just muscle but a fully complementary style.” Also an accomplished singer and flute player, Miller began playing Irish music as a high-schooler in Bemidji, Minnesota. He has been a highly visible character in the Twin Cities Irish music scene since 1998, while often sneaking away to his other adopted home of Cork, Ireland. As a member of a number of groups and duos including The Tommie Cunniffe Trio, Gan Bua, The Doon Ceili Band, 5 Mile Chase and Laura and the Lads, Miller has performed throughout the US, Canada and Ireland. In Ireland he has been featured on TG4, RTE television and RTE radio. The Irish Times called his guitar accompaniment on Tommie Cunniffe’s 2007 solo album “superb”.

Norah and Brian often team up with fiddler Nathan Gourley as the Two Tap Trio. Nathan’s smooth, improvisational fiddle style can also be heard accompanying the Rince Na Chroi Irish dancers and with the Doon Ceili Band.

Matt and Shannon Heaton

www.eatsrecords.com

Location

Techline
24 East Green Street
Champaign, IL

Guitarist/singer Matt Heaton and Irish flute player/singer Shannon Heaton have been making music together since their first meeting in 1992. They met in Chicago via romance, albeit someone else's, when Shannon needed a guitar player to play for a wedding gig that never ended up happening. Despite the loss of the gig, Matt & Shannon gained a musical—and eventually romantic—partnership.

Together, they built up their traditional Irish music skills on Irish flute and guitar in the Chicago sessions (learning from John Williams, Liz Carroll, Brendan McKinney, Denis Cahill, and Kevin Henry). When they began bringing in singing, they focused on their favorite aspects of both Irish and American traditions, ending up with new songs that sound traditional, alongside centuries-old ballads with fresh new melodies.

For years, the two worked as active side players for several Celtic music luminaries, including Robbie O'Connell, Aoife Clancy, Boys of the Lough, Emily Smith, Eamonn Coyne, and Halali. And during a three-year “sabbatical” in Boulder, CO, Matt and Shannon formed the band Siucra with Colorado singer Beth Leachman and later, Vermont fiddler Sam Amidon, putting out three acclaimed recordings.

In 2003, the Heatons began focusing their creative energies on their duo, coming up with ways to create a full and varied sound with just two people. They put out their first duo album, “dearga” in Oct 2003. It was a mix of traditional tunes and original compositions, with three vocal numbers. Dirty Linen called it “ a fine mix of reels and jigs with a dynamic rhythmic tension, and an infectious spirit and vitality that translates into bright, uplifting music that will make you smile.”

Scott Alarik of The Boston Globe called "Blue Skies Above", the Heatons’ March 2006 release, “masterful and inventive, their arrangements city-smart and spacious.” This, their second CD, contained more singing and tackled a wide range of subjects: lovers lost at sea, a conversation with death, the summer harvest in Nebraska, a twentieth century disaster, and learning to ride a bicycle. The CD’s title comes from Shannon’s self-penned last verse of the traditional song “The Blackbird”, highlighting the Heatons’ style of merging traditional and original lyrics and melodies.

Their third duo release “Fine Winter’s Night” (Nov 2007) is not your run-of-the-mill Christmas release. Matt and Shannon present a banquet of songs dating from the 12th to the 21st century, their convivial blend of voices — supplemented by ever-tasteful and adept accompaniment on guitar, bouzouki and Irish flutes — gives "Fine Winter's Night" a sound that is simultaneously homegrown, refined and timeless. The music on “Fine Winter’s Night” ranges across a spectrum of moods and emotions much like the holiday season itself: a mix of poignancy, jubilance and reflection.

Matt and Shannon Heaton make traditional music relevant to American audiences. They embrace the solid Irish roots in their music, play the heck out of their instruments, and aren't afraid to step out and sing from their American musical and social experiences. "We're out to get everything we can out of two musicians. The more we put into it, the more we get out of it--and so, we think, do our audiences."