Links and Bio's
About Irish Music Forever
Recent Album: Live In Paris & Toronto
Drawing from Celtic history and incorporating music from other lands and landscapes, singer/composer Loreena McKennitt has woven recorded music that's enchanted millions of listeners across the globe. For her first widely released live album, the artist set out to capture the
added magic of live performance as well. Songs are sequenced as when she and her band do them live, and although the 16 tracks on the double disc set were recorded at three concerts, the work plays as an integrated whole. The whole song cycle from Book of Secrets is included, as
well as favorites from earlier recordings. This is a good introduction to the multilayered music she creates, sometimes incorporating ancient Celtic motifs, at other times calling in eastern melodies, and always making a thought-provoking journey for the listener.
While she was in post-production on this project, McKennitt's partner Ron Rees lost his life in a boating accident, along with his brother and a co-worker. In their honor, McKennitt set up a fund to advance education and training about water safety. She's committed a substantial
portion of the sales from this project to the work of the fund. Kerry Dexter (From a Dirty Linen article about the album "Live In Paris & Toronto (1999)" from the CD-NOW web site)
CD NOW
Official Web Site
Link #2
I-music
Recent Album: Bushes & Briars
On Bushes and Briars, singer Susan McKeown turns to traditional material, and her considerable vocal talent shines through on 11 songs performed with flair, and in many instances, dare. Her singing is confident, expressive, graceful, and powerful, and she can deliver at will any
vocal nuance she needs to make any piece successful.
She is supported by no less than 19 accompanists -- Seamus Egan, Johnny Cunningham, Jerry O'Sullivan, Jamshied Sharifi, Samir Chatterjee, and Akira Satake among them -- on instruments that include
guitar, mandocello, uilleann pipes, accordion, fiddle, French horn, tuba, tabla, electronic keyboards, bassoon, and more. The instrumental settings that back McKeown can be classified in two ways: First of all, there are the more traditional arrangements featuring acoustic
instruments generally associated with Irish folk material. Just low whistle accompanies the ethereal, sensuous treatment McKeown gives to the Gaelic "Seoladh Na nGamhna" ("Driving the Calves"). Uilleann pipes and guitar are her support on a wonderful rendition of the emigration song
"Craigie Hill."
A second category of selections opt for adventurous, unusual, and unexpected arrangements, and they work famously. If you have doubts, go along for the adventure. I don't know if there are "Mountain Streams Where the Moorcocks Crow" in India, but the tabla/tambura/flute backing
of McKeown's floating, mystical version of this song would make you think so. Percussion, woodwinds, whistles, keyboards and mesmerizing "aaah-ah, aaah-ah" backing vocal chant turns "Banks of Claudy" into a stunning trad-goes-quietly-ambient tour-de-force. The upbeat "In London So
Fair," smartly driven by cittern/accordion/whistle/bodhr n accompaniment, opens and closes with cascading, punctuating stringed instruments that carry the feel of a Philip Glass composition. In the hands of a lesser artist there could have been a travesty committed here, but the
arrangements are inventive, tasteful, fit in very well with the material, and never drag things down on this highly rewarding effort from Susan McKeown. Highly recommended.
- Al Riess (Buffalo, NY) (From CD-NOW reprint of Dirty Linen review of "Bushes & Briars")
CD NOW
Official Web Site
Prime CD
Recent Album: After The Morning
Irish vocalist Katie McMahon was best known as the longtime featured singer with the hit musical troupe Riverdance. A classically trained singer and harpist, McMahon first emerged as a member of the Irish choir Anuna; she was a member of Riverdance since its inception, appearing as part of the seven-minute performance piece which took home top honors at the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest and later signing on with the troupe's main touring company. She issued her
debut solo LP After the Morning in 1998. ~ Jason Ankeny, All-Music Guide (From the CDNOW Biography)
CD-NOW
Official Web Site
Link #1
Recent Album: Irish Guitar Encores
This Connecticut-based guitarist has impeccable technique and is a sensitive interpreter of solo guitar material. ~ Richard Meyer, All-Music Guide (From the CDNOW Biography)
This site
© 2002
Name of Performer/Group Page 27
Loreena McKennitt Back to Artist List
Susan McKeown Back to Artist List
Link #4
Bushes & Briars
Katie McMahon Back to Artist List
El McMeen Back to Artist List
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