The Band
Paddy O'Brien
Paddy O’Brien
A product of County Offaly in the midlands of Ireland, Paddy O’Brien is regarded by serious players and collectors of Irish traditional music as one of the tradition’s most important repositories; in a musical career that spans nearly forty years, he has collected more than 3,000 compositions—jigs, reels, hornpipes, airs, and marches, including many rare and unusual tunes. His mastery of the two-row button accordion was also acknowledged through prestigious awards: he was named Oireachtas champion four times, and All-Ireland senior accordion champion in 1975.
In Ireland, he played and recorded with the famed Castle Ceili Band and Ceoltoiri Laighean. In 1978, Paddy began playing regularly in the United States, in Washington DC, Saint Louis, Saint Paul, San Francisco, Boston, New York, and many places between. He has been featured on three recordings with Shanachie Records since 1978, and in 1988 released his first solo album, Stranger at the Gate, on the Green Linnet label.
Paddy has taught at the prestigious Willie Clancy Summer School held in Milltown Malbay, County Clare, and three times served as a master artist in the Minnesota State Arts Board Folk Arts Apprenticeship Program. In the fall of 1994, he received a $6,500 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to record and annotate 500 tunes from his vast repertoire of traditional music; the result of that effort, The Paddy O’Brien Tune Collection: A Personal Treasury of Irish Jigs and Reels, has received accolades from players of Irish music around the world.
Patrick Ourceau
Patrick Ourceau
Fiddle player Patrick Ourceau was born and raised in France, settled in New York City in 1989 and is now based in Toronto, Canada. Although he is mostly self-taught, Patrick’s fiddle playing has been greatly influenced and shaped by the music of the great Co. Clare and East Co. Galway musicians he has been in contact with over the years—from his many visits to Ireland and frequent meetings with fiddle players Paddy Canny and Peter O’Loughlin, but also from the great musicians living in New York City, particularly flute player Jack Coen from Woodford in Co. Galway.
Patrick has been performing across the U.S., Canada, and Europe since the early nineties, has been featured on a host of recordings, and is in demand as a teacher at festivals and summer schools across North America and Ireland.
Pat Egan
Pat Egan
Pat Egan is becoming a recognized force on the contemporary folk scene. A native of Tipperary, Pat grew up singing and playing, and has been a professional musician since 1985.
He served his apprenticeship with the Dublin groups Old Bawn and De Min, and has since been a member of Idle Wall, and the Mayo-based traditional group Sheeaun. More recently, his performance on the internationally acclaimed recording Music at Matt Molloy’s brought his talent to much wider attention, and in 1994 he produced a highly regarded solo tape, Songs for the Candle.
Now based in Baltimore, Maryland, Pat has made extensive tours of the United States, and has also performed in Sweden, Norway, Holland, Germany, and Scotland. He has appeared on numerous television and radio programs, in the U.S., Ireland, and abroad.