Michael McGoldrick is a folk musician who plays Irish flute, uilleann pipes, low whistle and bodhran. He also plays other instruments such as acoustic guitar, cittern, and mandolin.
Mary Chapin Carpenter is an American rock, folk, and country music singer-songwriter. Carpenter spent several years singing in Washington, D.C. clubs before signing in the late 1980s with Columbia Records, who marketed her as a country singer. Carpenter's first album, 1987's Hometown Girl, did not produce any charting singles, although 1989's State of the Heart and 1990's Shooting Straight in the Dark each produced four Top 20 hits on the Billboard country singles charts.
Kate Anna Rusby is an English folk singer-songwriter from Penistone, West Riding of Yorkshire, England. Sometimes called the "Barnsley Nightingale", she has headlined various British national folk festivals, and is one of the best known contemporary English folk singers. In 2001 The Guardian described her as "a superstar of the British acoustic scene." In 2007 the BBC website described her as "The first lady of young folkies". She is one of the few folk singers to have been nominated for the Mercury Prize.
Christopher Scott Thile is an American mandolinist, singer, songwriter, composer, and radio personality, best known for his work in the progressive acoustic trio Nickel Creek and the acoustic folk and progressive bluegrass quintet Punch Brothers. He is a 2012 MacArthur Fellow. In October 2016, he became the host of the radio variety show A Prairie Home Companion, which in December 2017 was renamed Live from Here.
John McCusker is a Scottish folk musician, record producer and composer. An accomplished fiddle player, he had a long association as a member of the Battlefield Band beginning in the 1990s and was later a band member and producer for folk singer Kate Rusby. He has served as producer and arranger for artists in a range of genres and also has several solo albums to his credit.
Todd Phillips is an American double bassist. He has appeared on a number of acoustic instrumental and bluegrass recordings made since the mid-1970s. A two-time Grammy Award winner and founding member of the original David Grisman Quintet, Phillips has made a career of performing and recording with acoustic music artists.
Little Lights is an album by British folk musician Kate Rusby, released in 2001.
Sings the Songs of Robert Burns is the seventh studio album by Eddi Reader. It was released in the UK on 12 May 2003.
Aoife O'Donovan is an Irish-American singer and Grammy award-winning songwriter. She is best known as the lead singer for the string band Crooked Still and she also co-founded the Grammy Award-winning female folk trio I'm with Her. She has released three critically acclaimed studio albums: Fossils (2013), In the Magic Hour (2016), and Man in a Neon Coat: Live from Cambridge (2016), as well as multiple noteworthy EPs, including Blue Light (2010), Peachstone (2012), In the Magic Hour: Solo Sessions (2019), and Bull Frog's Croon (2020). She also spent a decade contributing to the radio variety shows Live from Here and A Prairie Home Companion. Her first professional engagement was singing lead for the folk group The Wayfaring Strangers.
Punch Brothers is an American band consisting of Chris Thile (mandolin), Gabe Witcher (fiddle/violin), Noam Pikelny (banjo), Chris Eldridge (guitar), and Paul Kowert (bass). Their style has been described as "bluegrass instrumentation and spontaneity in the structures of modern classical" as well as "American country-classical chamber music".
Gabriel Witcher is a Grammy award winning American multi-instrumentalist, producer, composer, and arranger, best known as a fiddle player and singer. He is a founding member of the string ensemble Punch Brothers. Witcher and his fellow Punch Brothers won the 2019 Grammy for Best Folk Album and were named Affiliate Scholars of Oberlin Conservatory in 2014.
Kris Drever is a Scottish contemporary folk musician and songwriter who came to prominence in 2006 with the release of his debut solo album, Black Water. Drever is the vocalist and guitarist of the folk trio Lau with Martin Green and Aidan O'Rourke. He has worked with other British folk contemporaries, including Kate Rusby, John McCusker, Ian Carr, Eddi Reader and Julie Fowlis.
Sarah Jarosz is an American singer-songwriter from Wimberley, Texas. Her first album, Song Up in Her Head, was released in 2009 and the tune "Mansinneedof" was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of Best Country Instrumental Performance. Her second album, Follow Me Down, released in 2011, received a Song of the Year nomination from the Americana Music Association's 2012 Honors and Awards. Her third album, Build Me Up from Bones, was released on September 24, 2013 through Sugar Hill Records. Build Me Up from Bones was nominated for Best Folk Album at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards, and its title track was nominated for Best American Roots Song. In 2016 Jarosz released her fourth album, Undercurrent. The album won two Grammy awards.
TradFest Temple Bar is an annual music and culture festival that takes place in late January in Dublin, Ireland. Founded by the Temple Bar Company, a not-for-profit organisation who work on behalf of businesses in the cultural quarter of Temple Bar, Dublin, it celebrates traditional Irish and folk music and cultural offerings and was launched in 2005. One of the few independent events of its type in Ireland, it has become a major draw for international audiences travelling from the US, UK and Europe - attracting almost 25,000 visitors in 2017. Ticket prices are kept to a minimum price to ensure value for money for those attending. The festival has established its reputation by attracting some of the biggest names internationally in folk and traditional Irish music such as Billy Bragg, Donovan, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Martin Carthy, Maria McKee, Fairport Convention, Eddi Reader, Sarah Jarosz, Ralph McTell, Gilbert O’Sullivan, Steeleye Span and Levellers. Notable Irish acts who have performed include Glen Hansard, Aoife O’Donovan, Damien Dempsey, Declan O’Rourke, Paul Brady, Mundy, Mick Flannery, Maura O’Connell, Finbar Furey, The Dublin Legends, Clannad, Altan, Beoga, Martin Hayes, Kila and Stockton's Wing.
Make the Light is the ninth studio album by folk musician Kate Rusby, released on 22 November 2010 on Pure Records. The album is the first to feature songs written solely by Rusby; this idea was suggested by actress Jennifer Saunders, with whom Rusby had previously worked on the show Jam & Jerusalem.
Transatlantic Sessions is the collective title for a series of musical productions by Glasgow-based Pelicula Films Ltd, funded by- and produced for BBC Scotland, BBC Four and RTÉ of Ireland. The productions comprise collaborative live performances by various leading folk, bluegrass and country musicians from both sides of the North Atlantic, playing music from Scotland, Ireland, England and North America, who congregate under the musical direction of Aly Bain and Jerry Douglas to record and film a set of half-hour TV episodes. The Television director is Mike Alexander and the producer is Douglas Eadie.
The Phosphorescent Blues is the fourth studio album by the American group Punch Brothers, released on January 27, 2015. The band announced the release of the album's first single, "I Blew It Off", on November 17, 2014, On December 4, 2014, the group announced the album's name and release date, along with the second single, "Julep". Julep was nominated for Best American Roots Song at the 2016 Grammy Awards. The album's cover is from the René Magritte painting "The Lovers" (1928).
Follow Me Down is the second studio album by American folk and bluegrass singer-songwriter Sarah Jarosz, released on May 17, 2011 on Sugar Hill Records. It was recorded and mixed at Minutia Studios and mastered at The Mastering Lab in Nashville, TN, by Gary Paczosa with additional engineering by Brandon Bell. In 2012, the song "Come Around" was nominated for Song of the Year at the Americana Music Honors & Awards.
Tim O'Brien is an American country and bluegrass musician. In addition to his 22 solo albums and his recordings with Hot Rize, he has been featured as a performer on many albums by other artists.
All Ashore is the fifth studio album by the American group Punch Brothers, released on July 20, 2018. The band announced the release of the album's first singles "It's All Part of the Plan" and the instrumental "Three Dots and a Dash" on June 14, 2018. The album was self-produced by the band and was released on the Nonesuch Records label. The nine songs were written and recorded in the sequence of the tracklist at the United Sound studio in Los Angeles, California. The album received generally favorable reviews from critics.
