Live Ireland Singer of the Year
I am honoured to have been named "Live Ireland's Singer of the Year" by acclaimed Irish-American music critic and radio presenter, Bill Margeson! The Outside Track was also given the award of "Best Instrumental and Vocal Group". Very exciting news for us today!
Young Tradition Bearer Award
The Goderich Celtic Roots Festival named me 2011 "Young Tradition Bearer" due to my dedication to teaching, performing and researching traditional music. My work as Executive Director of the Center for Irish Music and as singer with The Outside Track and the Two Tap Trio helped the folks at the Goderich Celtic Roots Festival decide to bestow the award upon me this year. Thank you, humbly, for this acknowledgement of my miniscule contribution to traditional music in Canada and elswhere. I am engaged in traditional music, above all other reasons, because I love the music. Over the years, I have also found great depth and meaning in the relationships that have developed around the music.
New Musical Territory
2011 started with finalizing all the music and choreography for "Get Up Your Irish", an original play for young actors featuring traditional Irish music and dance co-created by Natalie O'Shea and myself.
I chose, arranged and directed the music and Natalie wrote and directed the play itself. We worked together closely over the course of 16 months as Natalie wove a narrative in and out of musical material to tell the story of a young boy's journey of immigration from Ireland to Saint Paul. Ultimately, it is not only an emotional story about cultural stereotypes that have been forced onto Irish immigrants to North America but also the reconcilliatory powers of music and dance.
Natalie O'Shea unveiled her gift and skill as a director and playwright and the play our beloved creation ended up being a bigger success than either of us could have imagined! Thanks to Steppingstone Theatre for providing the opportunity for our students and for producing the play.
Right before we went into production in early March, The Outside Track embarked on its first tour of the Upper Midwest after showcasing at the International Folk Alliance Conference in Memphis. We played in Cuyahoga, Milwaukee, Saint Paul, Fairfield, and Illinois and had an amazing time. No snow storms! More links, live interviews and footage of the tour can be found on The Outside Track's Facebook page. Join the e-mail list on our website, or become our Facebook friend.
This week, I am working on some tunes and songs collected in Canada in preparation to do a few concerts with Pierre Schryer, a well-known fiddle player from the Ottawa Valley. We are playing at Hibbing Community College's Global Focus Conference and then down in Twin Cities at the Celtic Junction. It's a good excuse for me to work on the body of songs I have been singing that were collected in Canada (many of them originally from Ireland or the British Isles). I am also learning some lovely tunes from Quebec.
If all of these music projects weren't enough, read on! In November, I was asked to be the Executive Director of an amazing non-profit community school in Saint Paul called the Center for Irish Music. I am deeply passionate about Irish traditional music and education and I couldn't have hoped for a better opportunity and setting to combine the two in my work. It is an honour to be working with the 18 local instructors and volunteer board and staff, all of whom are dedicated to teaching Irish traditional music and creating a community around it. Every day, I am in disbelief at the willingness of people to lend their time and skills to the school, and in the unquenchable appetite for real traditional Irish music that exists in the Twin Cities. I've never seen anything like it in my life. It makes every moment of effort as Executive Director worth it.
This new chapter in my life has already presented challenges as artist and educator (other than making me very busy) and no doubt I will be writing more about this in the future. What does it mean to teach Irish music in an institutional setting? How can we provide experiences for our students that teaches them the cultural aspects of the music - the ever elusive "craic"?
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