JOHN MCDERMOTT
TORONTO, CANADA

"Legend" is not a title John McDermott would readily embrace, but his accomplishments have become legendary in industry lore. He has released at least one album, and averaged more than 100 performances a year for the last decade.

Far from plotting his fame, in 1993 John was a newspaper circulation rep who took time out to record The Danny Boy Collection as a tribute for his parents 50th Anniversary. The songs on the album were carefully selected – one for each of his siblings. And no, it wasn't a half-album. John is the ninth of twelve from a traditional Glasgow Irish family. By happenstance, this album found its way into the hands of EMI Music Canada, and before John the circulation rep knew it, he'd transformed into John the recording artist with a million-selling, double platinum debut album. Not bad.

This success led to the PBS phenomenon The Irish Tenors, which generated a US gold record, three US tours and a high-profile media schedule including appearances on 'Good Morning America' and 'The Today Show'. The outcome of that fateful performance catapulted him into a musical career that includes nine full-length albums, three Canadian platinum records, and five Juno nominations.

In November 2001, John taped his first solo television special, John McDermott - A Time to Remember, which was broadcast on PBS affiliates across North America, and released on CD and DVD. In 2003, he released Great Is Thy Faithfulness, a collection of his favourite spiritual music; Legacy, a CD Single to raise funds for veterans organizations; and Stories Of Love, a dream project on which he interprets music by Frank Sinatra and bossa-nova king Antonio Carlos Jobim.

In 2004, John started his own music label while working on four separate projects: A Christmas album, a contemporary folk project, and two foundational albums – Songs Of The Isles: Ireland and Songs of the Isles: Scotland.

Later that year, John rejoined old friends Finbar Wright and Anthony Kearns of The Irish Tenors. They toured 11 U.S. cities, and Europe. A new Tenors recording entitled DEUS MEUS followed in 2005. John went on to complete Just Plain Folk – a live recording with folk legend Michael P. Smith, and toured in support of the album.

Despite his fame as a recording artist, John is no less regarded for his commitment to veterans' causes. "The veterans population has historically been ignored outside of one day a year, but I hope that recent events will change that," John explained. In his 1999 album Remembrance, John revived songs like "We'll Meet Again" and "I'll be Seeing You" – both popularized during wartime. Not content to just sing about societal problems, John has established innovative projects such as McDermott House, a transitional housing coop for veterans in Washington, D.C., and more recently, the Hope McDermott Day Program Center in Boston. He has also spoken on veterans issues at the National Press Club, an event broadcast nationally on C-Span, and continues to work with groups such as the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, the War Amps of Canada, the Semper Fidelis Society, and the New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans. In recognition of his efforts, John was presented the prestigious Bob Hope Award.

If his life weren't busy enough, John is also spearheading the expansion of Dore Achievement Centers into Canada. Dore Centers employ a revolutionary non-invasive, drug-free approach to learning disorders by utilizing basic physical exercises to stimulate the brain. Over time, the process leads Dore clients to improved learning, language, emotion and motor skills.

In short, John has led many lives inside of one, and the richness, texture, and compassion which mark his life also inform his music, which is why he is one of the premier tenors of his time. Cleveland Irish Cultural Festival is honored to have him, fittingly enough, visit the home town of Bob Hope to share those talents with us.

SCYTHIAN
WASHINGTON, DC

"Playing the I-95 corridor Scythian is developing a rabid following along with interwoven playing that is sure to deliver a grand time for all who see them . . . all of the members of the band play a variety of instruments and are natural showmen, engaging the audience on every number."

Glide Magazine

"We don't know of another local band that can churn out rebel songs, Pogues covers and traditional reels with the same levels of skill and energy."

The Washington Post

Homeland first started up its engines eleven years ago and took the Midwestern US by storm with a unique mix of Celtic and energetic American folk rock. It was a 'first of its kind' band and quickly build a huge base of loyal fans. 2009 brought a change in the band's lineup and the addition of a brand new dimension of sound, an adrenaline-fueled Celtic rock ride with blazing fast reels and jigs on the fiddle, Highland pipes, Uilleann pipes, Scottish smallpipes, and Irish whistles in a throwback to its deep Celtic roots. The band delivers Celtic-influenced original rock tunes, edgy & high-speed takes on old traditional tunes and hard-driving instrumentals as only Homeland can play.

Born in Aclare Co. Sligo, Ireland in 1971, Tommy was the youngest of six children. He started singing while still at school, and soon found himself fronting his own band. A chance encounter with Phil Coulter at a charity function near his home led to a big break which soon placed Tommy on the world stage, appearing as a guest singer on Phil’s USA tour. Following a stint where Tommy performed with famed DeDanaan, he went on to achieve Multi-Platinum success from his many solo recordings.

His reputation growing, Tommy's star was burning bright, but tragically, just after securing a record deal, a car accident left the singer with a broken neck leaving his music career on-hold indefinitely. After many months of convalescents, Tommy finally returned to the stage where he re-established his reputation as one of the world's finest singers and is currently enjoying a hugely successful career, now 18 years in the making.

Tommy infuses each song with his own unique and powerful style, eliciting emotions as only a master balladeer can.

A Tommy Fleming concert is a musical experience not to be missed, with each piece seeming more haunting than the last. He has a universal appeal to all ages and backgrounds with a global fan base that is growing by the year.

Don’t miss your opportunity to enjoy the experience of a Tommy Fleming concert.

With their sensational voices and stunning good looks, The Irish Sopranos wow audiences wherever they go. Wendy Dwyer, Kay Lynch and Deirdre Masterson are the créme de la créme of Irish classical vocal talent.

All three have had extensive classical training and each possesses a very distinctive, very individual voice. The voices together comprise lyric, lyric coloratura and dramatic soprano, producing a wonderful harmonic texture and lending themselves perfectly to the ravishing harmonies for which The Irish Sopranos are fast gaining a name.

Before coming together to form the group, Wendy, Kay and Deirdre have built hugely impressive individual performance portfolios. Between them they have vast experience on a wide variety of entertainment platforms from lead-singer with Riverdance to soloists on the International Operatic Stage.

 

For a while there, Maura O'Connell's website brandished the subtitle "Just a Singer," but that ironic tag has evolved into an ever-changing set of comments from the cheeky (and accurate) "Just a Wonder" to the very sensible, lower-key suggestion that we "Just Listen."

From her first recorded appearance as a lead vocalist with the celebrated traditional Celtic group DeDanaan in 1981, to her tenth and latest solo disc, Don't I Know, O'Connell has married an unmistakable deep, rich, flexible voice and her signature talent for finding what's most potent in the work of a select but broad array of genre-jumping songwriters, to pull the listener right along with her--to the heart of a song.

Don't I Know, produced by her long-time collaborator, the dobro master Jerry Douglas, may be the most eclectic O'Connell collection yet, as it ventures from a contemplative turn on rising new singer-songwriter Mindy Smith's "Goin' Down in Flames" to a surprising, surging rock take on Nashville hit-maker Hillary Lindsey's "Spinning Wheel."

"This one does mark another transition," O'Connell says of her second Sugar Hill release, the follow-up to 2001's Walls and Windows. "I wanted to develop the area of singing harder, a little edgier, and with guitars. Still,for me, the song is always the main deal--rather than the style."

If the songs Maura O'Connell renders so affectingly vary across genres, from occasional tones of old Ireland to sparkling new jazz or pop, from revisited classics by Van Morrison or Lennon and McCartney to songs of new American songwriters unheard till she's found them, there is at least one recognizable pattern in most all of them -- lyrics that set the stage for the song, laying down a context, in surroundings, or mood, or the passing of time, then home in on a very specific vignette of love and life. (The title of one of the new songs "Love You in the Middle," pretty much nails the theme.)

O'Connell inhabits the song's situation; seeing the songs as drama, has led her repeatedly to certain writers, such as Patty Griffin, precisely because of their "ability to create characters" in swift strokes.

So maybe it's no surprise that Martin Scorsese cast Maura, scruffed up for the role, as an Irish migrant street singer in his recent 19th century epic The Gangs of New York. It's less known that the marriage of music and narrative was part of O'Connell's world almost from the beginning.

Born and raised in County Clare, Ireland, she was the third of four singing sisters, but it wasn't ancient Celt folk tunes in which that household was drenched--but their singing mother's collection of light opera, opera, and parlor song records.

"I'm sure that those have something to do with how I approach singing," O'Connell says now. "I was aware of singing as an art form in itself." With that awareness, and her focus on singing, she has always been most interested in tunes "that haven't been performed by other people." That was a key reason her first public role as lead singer with the tradition-oriented DeDannan never felt entirely comfortable, and the reason why, in the midst of that folk success, she was so attracted to the experimental roots music of America's New Grass Revival when the bands' paths crossed.

"They were instrumentalists who were not bound by the history of their instruments, from a generation who grew up listening to bluegrass, and the Beatles, and jazz. They brought all of that along, and pushed the envelope really far. There was an exciting feeling of creativity there--and a complete disregard for what anyone thought!"

She would follow that sound to America--and to Nashville, Tennessee. Newgrass masters such as banjoist Bela Fleck and Jerry Douglas (who's appeared on all of O'Connell's discs but one) and a floating contingent of adventurous Nashville hands have provided back-up and production for most of her recorded work--including the Grammy-nominated Helpless Heart and Blue is the Color of Hope for Warner Brothers, Stories and the Irish-oriented Wandering Home for Hannibal/Rykodisc, and the two Sugar Hill discs. The very flexible--and ace--Bryan Sutton and Jonathan Trebing (on acoustic and electric guitars), Viktor Krauss (on bass) and Shannon Forest (on drums) are the core backing band on Don't I Know--with musical textures added by everything from fiddles, to clavinets, to lap steel and B-3 organ.

If today her songs are often from the pens of unclassifiable Nashville mavericks--Jim Lauderdale, Kim Richey and Tim O'Brien are three on the new one--it's only natural; O'Connell has made her home in Music City U.S.A. for some 18 years now. "I'm a product of my environment, I suppose; when I was in Ireland, I knew many people from that scene; most of the songs I hear now, I hear here! People here know what I'm like;I've kind of grown up, and my point of view has changed, with life circumstances much different now than they were when I recorded my first album in '83. Changes have come, people have died, which happens as you get older. In fact, I'm looking forward to going out with the new songs on this record. I don't get out as much, since I've had a son--who's just turned eight."

There's a sense of the passing of time and the losses that come along with it in Maura's music now--and certainly, a higher percentage of tunes that look at the perplexities of life. But even that tone sends her back to the song as song. "Songwriters become more lyrical and poetic, more ruminative, and more in touch with the world's soul, when they're nice and depressed and pondering about it, O'Connell laughs.

If her broad musical interests have been essentially consistent over the 20-plus years of her recording career, the more mature Maura O'Connell is also sounding more self-assured than ever before, utterly ready to take us on that voyage to the center of the song one more time.

And by now, we're assured that she'll get us there. Just listen.

Don is the most recent singer songwriter to emerge on to the Irish folk scene. Stiffe hails from Galway and his singing prowess is up there with that of Sean Keane, Sean Tyrell, Dolores Keane, and Dessy O’Halloran.

“Start of a Dream” is Don’s long awaited debut solo album that was released in 2006 to critical acclaim. Don’s soothing and powerful voice gives us a selection of eleven songs, four of which are penned by Don himself. Grosse Isle, The Returning, Missing Galway and The Banks of the Danube tell us stories both of immigration and returning to Ireland, delivered in Don’s own unmistakable manner. An admirer of Richards Thompson’s artistry, Don puts his own distinctive stamp on Waltzing ‘s for Dreamers and the Dimming of the Day. The classic Monalisa is also given a traditional feel through Don’s passionate singing and the masterful musicianship of Frankie Gavin and Carl Hession. Sharon Shannon, Cathal Hayden, Arty McGlynn and many other fantastic musical colleagues also join Don on the album.

Don lived in Boston, USA, in the 90’s where he was involved in the folk scene. He was a regular visitor to St. Louis where he spent time in the company of the legendary accordion player Joe Burke who described him as “The Bard of Bohermore”. On these musical journeys to St. Louis Don took to the stage with such musical exponents as Ann Conroy, Tony Linnane and Michael Cooney.

Don guarantees a most impressive performance in front of a live audience as those who have seen him in Ireland, Europe and the USA will testify. He has been selling out live performances since the release of “Start of a Dream”. To quote Sean Laffey (Irish Music Magazine) on Start of a Dream “… the musical quality of the album is in the premier league… style, taste, pace and final execution are flawless and his choice of songs is inspired … a class act, with a class album”.

Singing for world statesmen, singing in French, performing in South Africa, Russia, Switzerland, the United States, England or in her own beloved Emerald Isle of Ireland remains a way of life for Ireland's First Lady of Country music Susan McCann, after over a quarter of a century as an international star.

The current US President George W. Bush, and his father George Bush Senior, are only two of the thousands of fans who have met and been entertained by Susan during her ascendant international career. She continues to amass new fans as well as retaining a loyal long standing fan base in the four corners of the world.

Her first single on Spin Records, "Santa and the Kids", was a big success but it was her second release "Big Tom is still the King", which took her to No. 1 in the Irish Pop Charts in May 1977 and the song remained in the Top 20 for 11 weeks. Up to then Susan did not want to travel any further than a 60-mile radius of her Co. Down, Northern Ireland home. The success of that No.1 song changed all that forever! It was a tribute to Tom McBride; one of Ireland's most successful country music performers. This hit was the turning point in her career, which launched Susan to stardom.

By 1979 Susan was an artist with international appeal and on October 8th of that year she made her first appearance at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry. It was to be the first of many appearances at the Mother Church of Country Music in Music City USA.

In the US Susan has appeared at the prestigious Florida Strawberry Festival on 6 occasions. This festival attracts in the region of one million people over the 11-day period. Susan had the pleasure of singing first for President George Bush (Snr) and General Norman Schwarzkopf and in more recent times the present US President George W. Bush came to her show and met her afterwards at the Florida festival. She has appeared in concert at New York's Carnegie Hall. and made numerous guest appearances on American television, both network and regional.

In the Southern Hemisphere Susan has a huge following and has made three highly successful concert tours of South Africa and three appearances on SABC TV "Good Morning South Africa". Her records are also available in neighbouring Namibia. In Eastern Europe in June 1994 Susan appeared at a multi - cultural extravaganza called the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg, Russia. Susan sang her brand of country & Irish to 5,000 people, including leading Russian statesmen.

In Easter 1980 Susan made her first appearance at the Wembley International Country Music Festival, rubbing shoulders with some of her idols - Tammy Wynette, Crystal Gayle and Emmylou Harris. Susan's subsequent appearances at the Wembley Festival were in 1981, 1985, 1989 and 1991. Her acceptance as an international star was well proven in 1982 when she won two major awards in Europe and the USA. She won the European Gold Star Award beating off competition from a dozen or so other European countries. Later that year, Susan won the top international female accolade presented by the International Country & Western Music Association at its awards presentation in Fort Worth in Texas. Susan repeated this success the following year.

In 1995 Susan teamed up with popular Irish singer Sean Wilson and they had many highly successful UK tours. Their album "King and Queen of Irish Country Music" attracted a gold disc for sales in excess of 250,000. "String of Diamonds" also proved to be a hugh success for Susan. With the help of veteran producer Liam Hurley they succeeded in coupling together some of the all time great songs into a new and exciting medley package. Success followed success with the first "String of Diamonds", which was relaesed as a CD single, and a number of different versions were then recorded and likewise they had that magic touch as album tracks.

Now in her 30'th year as a professional entertainer, Susan McCann - Ireland's First Lady is still a highly respected personality with both the public and media in her homeland and overseas. She is certainly one of the most travelled and consistent performers to emanate from the Emerald Isle.

For many years Susan's recordings had been available on different record labels - sometimes being released in a haphazard way without consultation, by record companies Susan did not even know. In 2006, after a lot of negotiation she was able to acquire control of these recordings and selected a new UK based label, H & H Music to act as the umbrella orginisation for all of her recordings. A series of Double CD releases have been planned under the heading "The Susan McCann Collection". The first being her earliest recordings "The Blayney Years", followed by "Sentimental Journey" and in July 07 her first DVD titled "My Story" hit the market. The DVD is narrated by Susan herself and includes clips from some of her finest TV shows and performances - such as The Wembley Country Music Festival, The Gold Star Award in Holland, The Porter Wagnor show from Nashville, The White Nights Festival in Russia, The Rose of Tralee Festival and of course The Sound of Music.