ZoukFest 2011 Staff

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Randal Bays, Blayne Chastain, Alec Finn, Laura Flanagan, Douglas Goodhart, Eliot Grasso, Stanley Greenthal, Ana Guia, Roger Landes, Paddy League, Brian McGrath, Luke Plumb, Moira Smiley, Steve Smith

Special Guest Artist

Alec Finn is one of the handful of players who introduced the bouzouki into Irish traditional music in the late 60s and early 70s. Independent of the tradition started by Irish bouzouki pioneers Johnny Moynihan, Andy Irvine, and Donal Lunny, Alec created his own highly individual style of improvised contrapuntal accompaniment. And today, unlike most other Irish bouzouki players, Alec plays a Greek bouzouki.

Alec was playing Blues on the guitar when he asked a friend who was traveling to Greece to bring him back a laouto. As fate would have it, the friend mistakenly brought back a bouzouki! Later, he began to play it in the traditional music sessions in Spiddal, Co. Galway, eventually founding the seminal group De Dannan with fiddler Frankie Gavin.

The combination of Alec’s bouzouki, with Frankie Gavin’s fiddle and Johnny “Ringo” McDonagh’s bodhran, gave De Dannan a sound that was at once modern and traditional, harkening back to the classic 78rpm records made by Irish players in the United States in the 1920s and 30s, and blending that with a Rock band sensibility.

Alec’s style of accompaniment is held in high esteem by many of the best melody players in the Irish tradition. His playing complements the melody with a layer of ever-developing harmonic content while supporting and accentuating the rhythm. Perhaps because he is one of the most successful Irish bouzouki players from a traditional point of view, he is also one of the least emulated, his style requiring an intimate knowledge of the melodies being played. ZoukFest is very pleased to have Alec back for the first time since 2003! [return to top]

Randal Bays is a self-taught US-born musician who’s been playing Irish fiddle for more than thirty years; he’s now widely recognized as a master of that complex, ancient art, in particular the traditional styles of Co. Clare and Co. Galway. He’s “among the best Irish style fiddlers of his generation,” according to Fiddler Magazine. Randal has toured and recorded with many of the great Irish musicians of the day, including James Keane and Daithi Sproule (in the band FINGAL), James Kelly, Martin Hayes, Michéal O’Domhnaill and many more. He also has a string of great independent recordings to his credit, including his live CD “House to House” with Roger Landes, which was picked by the Irish Times as one of the “top five traditional recordings of 2005.” The Irish Times also declared Randal to be “a commanding presence on the fiddle,” and Dirty Linen Magazine said, “His playing has power and passion… simply a joy to listen to.”

Randal Bays is also famed as a fingerstyle guitarist, having recorded two seminal albums with Irish fiddler Martin Hayes, also with contributions to the “Masters of the Irish Guitar” CD on Shanachie Records. Randal recently released his first album of solo guitar work, “Oyster Light.”

Randal has performed all over the US, Europe and Canada, and is in great demand as a teacher of Irish fiddle. He co-founded and serves as Artistic Director of the Friday Harbor Irish Music Week, which takes place every March in the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington state. The week is now in its tenth year and has been a major influence on musicians throughout North America for its emphasis on tradition and community, as well as the high level of instruction. [return to top]

Blayne Chastain discovered traditional Irish music through the band, Siucra. Inspired by their flute and whistle player, Shannon Heaton, Blayne devoted himself to mastering the whistle and later, the flute. This new found passion led him to found WhistleAndDrum.com, an online shop specializing in tin whistles and bodhráns. In 2005 he moved to Ireland to study at the University of Limerick’s Irish World Academy of Music & Dance. There he studied with some of the best Irish flute players in the world and played in loads of sessions. He graduated with honors with a Master of Arts in Traditional Irish Flute Performance.

Blayne currently teaches privately and online at http://blaynechastain.com/i-teach. He also leads a local session at Patrick’s Irish Pub. His love of Irish music deeply influences his “day job” as Music and Arts Director at Saint Patrick Presbyterian Church. Blayne lives with his wife, Deborah, their 3 year old daughter, Erin and 1 year old son, Grady, in the loft of their historic storefront in downtown Greeley, Colorado. [return to top]

Laura Flanagan began studying Irish traditional music in 2001. Since then she has studied with and been strongly influenced by American-born Irish fiddle great Randal Bays, as well as the acclaimed multi-instrumentalist Roger Landes, and she credits Dr. Chris Smith for providing her with a strong foundation in Irish traditional music. In 2004 she attended the Dr. Douglas Hyde Summer School of Traditional Irish Music in Ballaghaderreen, Co. Roscommon, Ireland where she studied fiddle with Brendan Larrissey. From 2005-2007, Flanagan played fiddle with the Lubbock Irish band Tripping Up the Stairs and performed at several regional Celtic festivals. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Texas Tech University and is certified to teach music in the state of Texas. Since 2004, she has taught middle school orchestra in Lubbock public schools. She has been a volunteer for ZoukFest for the past 6 years.

Fiddler Douglas Goodhart has spent 30 years studying and performing Appalachian music of the upper South. In 2000, he began studying the long-bow tradition of West Virginia with Alan Jabbour as well as Dr. Jabbour’s own unique style. He has studied extensively the fiddling of Michoacan, Mexico with Atilano Lopez and Dimas Camilo. He has spent years performing Cajun fiddle in southwest Louisiana with ensembles headed by Donald Fontenot and Ally Young, among others. In addition, Doug has been performing and teaching West African polyrhythmic music for 25 years with legendary performers Abubakari Lunna (Dagomba music), Gideon Foli Alorwoyie and Kwaku Ledzekpo (Ewe music). His pursuit and passion of polyrhythmic traditions has also led him to Afro-Cuban drumming (Agustin Romero Diaz), Flamenco Guitar (Miguel Rodriguez) and Mexican music from Veracruz (Alberto de la Rosa). Doug’s unique and gentle teaching style is known for getting students “up and running.” From 1987 to 1994 Doug was director of Center For World Music, an arts organization dedicated to performance and pedagogy of many world traditions including West Africa, France, Spain, Ireland, the United States, Mexico, Cuba and Brazil. From 1994 to 1997 Doug lived in France learning and performing traditional French music. Over the last few years Doug has added the music of Renaissance vihuela, lute and viola da gamba to his repertory. His latest CD entitled A Box of Fiddle Tunes, which focuses on Appalachian fiddling, was released in 2006. [return to top]

Baltimore native and Oregon resident Eliot Grasso hails from a long line of familial musicians. He began playing Irish traditional music on the flute at age seven, tin whistle at age eight, and uilleann pipes at age eleven, his earliest exposure including the music of The Chieftains and The Bothy Band. In January of 1995, Eliot began studying rudimentary piping technique with Paul Levin and later that year, began studying advanced piping technique with Na Píobairí Uilleann instructor, Kieran O’Hare. Since 1996, Eliot has won regional and international first, second, and third place titles at the Mid-Atlantic Fleadh Cheoil and Ireland’s International Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in the uilleann pipes and tin whistle divisions.

Eliot has made appearances at the Kennedy Center with Liz Carroll, Constitution Hall with Ethnomusicologist Dr. Mick Moloney, the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall with The Chieftains, the Library of Congress with Cherish the Ladies, the National Building Museum, the National Geographic Concert Hall, and the home of the Irish Ambassador. In addition, Eliot has performed for the National Heritage Awards, Island, the Washington Cathedral Art Symposium, The American Ireland Fund, the US-Ireland Business Summit, and has entertained President and Mrs. Clinton at the National Endowment for the Arts Awards. At the conclusion of the 1998 Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, Eliot performed alongside other All-Ireland champions in a concert for Irish President Mary Robinson. [return to top]

With mastery of guitar and bouzouki, Stanley Greenthal performs a compelling mix of original songs and fresh arrangements of instrumental music from Brittany, Scotland, Ireland and the Balkans. Self-taught on guitar since the age of 14, and later on the bouzouki, he has explored world folk music cultures, traveling widely through England, Scotland and Ireland, where he was profoundly influenced by the traditional players and singers in the rich Celtic musical heritage. His work attracted the interest of Micheal O Domhnaill, who produced and played on Stanley’s first recording, Songs for the Journey (1987), along with Kevin Burke and other seminal players of contemporary Celtic music. Subsequent travels to Brittany and Greece sparked his passion for Breton and Balkan music, which culminated in the production of his most recent album, Melodie, an instrumental collection that stretches musical borders from Scotland, Ireland and Brittany to Greece and the Balkans.

Stanley has released four highly praised recordings, and has been a guest on several other critically acclaimed albums, including releases by Randal Bays and Jamie Laval. He has taught numerous workshops, including ZoukFest, the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, Lark in the Morning camp, and at Dusty Strings in Seattle. A keen interest in the laouto and lavta (Greek and Turkish lutes) took Stanley to Crete in 2006, where he he studied with composer/multi-instrumentalist Ross Daly and other renowned performers from modal music traditions at the Labyrinth Musical Workshop. Stanley’s current projects include the Seattle-based Breton dance band Sonerion, and a trio with his wife Kip Greenthal and Greek multi-instrumentalist/singer Christos Govetas, performing Stanley’s original songs and a range of music from Greece and the Balkans. [return to top]

Ana Renno dos Mares Guia is an expert yogatherapist with nearly two decades of experience in traditional yoga and Ayurvedic medicine. She began her training at age fourteen in her native Brazil with Jak Pilosof, a disciple of Shyam Kashyap, and later completed the intensive teacher’s training at the Yoga Institute in Mumbai, India, the world’s oldest yoga center. Ana has studied Ayurveda with Dr. Vasant Lad in Santa Fe and Pune, India, and iIn 2006 completed her M.A. in Yogatherapy Applied to the Treatment of Eating Disorders at Lesley University. She has conducted workshops in yoga for musicians at Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory, and specializes in creating yoga sequences specially tailored to each individual’s specific needs. Ana is director of Divya Jyoti Yogatherapy in Brookline, Massachusetts, where she conducts workshops on various facets of yoga and attends to students on an individual basis.[return to top]

Celtic Heritage Magazine said of ZoukFest founder and director Roger Landes: “Not only is Landes helping to legitimize the instrument — he is taking it to a whole other level.” Roger took up the bouzouki in 1981 and co-founded the popular Celtic band Scartaglen. His critically acclaimed CD Dragon Reels is the result of his work mastering the intricacies of Irish traditional music. The Janissary Stomp, with folk and roots musician Chipper Thompson, is a ground-breaking collection of mostly original duets for two bouzoukis. In 1998 and 1999, Roger hosted ZoukFest, the first international gatherings devoted to the Celtic bouzouki, in Missouri. He appeared in and contributed to the soundtrack of the 1999 film Ride with the Devil, directed by Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), and has appeared on the National Public Radio shows Mountain Stage and A Prairie Home Companion. In April 2001, his music was featured in a PBS documentary, Last Stand of the Tallgrass Prairie. In October 2002, Roger joined Galician piper and Chieftains alumn Carlos Nuñez in his first US tour, and toured in a trio with Irish fiddle phenom Frankie Gavin (De Dannan) and harmonica virtuoso Rick Epping (Pumpkinhead). In April of 2004 he had the pleasure of accompanying legendary Irish fiddler Tommy Peoples (Bothy Band) for a week of concerts. House to House, a live duo CD with fiddler and guitarist Randal Bays was chosen one of the Top 5 Releases of Irish traditional music by the Irish Times (Dublin) in 2005. [return to top]

The grandchild of Greek and Irish immigrants, Paddy League grew up surrounded by the music of both cultures. By his teenage years, he had become a driving force on the North American acoustic and traditional music scene, contributing bodhrán, percussion, and guitar to recordings and concerts by dozens of artists in a variety of genres. He later immersed himself in the traditional music of Greece, living and studying in Athens and Crete for several years and becoming a highly proficient performer on violin, various lutes (including the old style three-course bouzouki), and tsambouna, the Greek island bagpipe. Paddy has been featured on nearly a hundred recordings, and has collaborated with artists such as Mick Moloney, Susan McKeown, Connie Dover, Sean Keane, Cathie Ryan, Grey Larsen, Seamus Egan and Solas. His current projects include the group Triptych (featuring fiddler Laura Risk and percussive dancer Kieran Jordan), the Boston-based Balkan brass band the Polydaktylos Orchestra, and a duo with Greek violinist Michalis Kappas. Paddy also lectures in Modern Greek Studies and Music at Hellenic College in Brookline, Massachusetts. [return to top]

Brian McGrath comes from Brookeborough, Co Fermanagh, in Northern Ireland—an area steeped in traditional music. Although his parents did not play music, they owned a pub that featured local and visiting players on a regular basis. This is where he first heard the music. He started playing piano at age five and later progressed to the accordion and then banjo and mandolin. As Brian got older, he started going to fleadhs and won many All-Ireland titles on these instruments. Brian’s first work in the professional field was with the group Dervish as banjo and mandolinist. He then joined Four Men And A Dog and played on the award winning album Barking Mad, featuring again on banjo and mandolin. He then moved his career on with some accompaniment work with Noel Hill, Paul Brock, Frankie Gavin, to name but a few, before joining the Sean Keane Band as pianist. After seven successful years with Sean, Brian joined the super group De Dannan where he stayed till the band eventually broke up in 2003. Brian now plays with the At The Racket, and is a very much sought after session musician on piano, banjo and mandolin. Brian Mc Grath has toured extensively the world over, and has played with all the biggest names in the traditional Irish music industry including Frankie Gavin, Noel Hill, John Carty, Matt Molloy, Paul Brock, Charlie Lennon, Joe Burke, Sean Maguire, Brian Rooney, Cathal Hayden, Joe Derrane, Arty McGlynn, Alec Finn, Alan Kelly, Dolores Keane, Maura O’Connell, Tommy Fleming, Steve Cooney, Eleanor Shanley, to name but a few. He has done extensive TV and Media work and has played on over 120 albums to date. [return to top]

Luke Plumb emerged onto the Australian music scene in 1998 and was immediately recognized as an exciting new talent. He won the Declan Affley Award that year and became a regular of the festival and session circuit in Australia. His experience as a jazz pianist and orchestral violinist has given him a wide range of musical influences from which he draws to create a very recognizable and inventive style. Equally at home playing melody on the banjo and mandolin or accompaniment on the bouzouki and guitar, his skills as a session musician saw Luke playing with musicians from many genres around the country. While on a tour of Australia, the Scottish group Shooglenifty recruited Luke for a gig in his local state of Tasmania. This chance meeting led to a full tour of Australia and an invitation back the UK to join the band full time. Since then he has toured the world, playing and teaching with Shooglenifty.

A keen composer — his tunes make up most of the latest Shooglenifty album — he also worked on several classical string quartet pieces that premiered in 2006. [return to top]

Composer-vocalist Moira Smiley travels the world as a soloist in Early and Traditional music and creates new work with dance, theatre and film. Moira was born in Vermont, moved to Indiana to pursue a piano performance degree at Indiana University School of Music, and finished with a degree in Early Music Vocal Performance, having studied voice with Thomas Binkley, Paul Elliott, Paul Hillier and Alan Bennett. While at IU, Moira toured with her vocal quartet, VIDA, singing a cappella folk song from Eastern Europe and various other vibrant harmony traditions, recorded three CDs of traditional and original songs, and performed in concerts throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe.

Moira moved to California to sing with KITKA Eastern European Vocal Ensemble, with whom she recently premiered the new folk-opera “Rusalka: Between the Worlds.” She continues to study Irish Sean Nós (old-style) singing and Appalachian ballad and dance-song. She recorded a solo CD, Rua, of Irish, Appalachian and her own songs (rua means “red” in Gaelic). With VOCO, her fiery roots vocal-band, Moira fuses a new sound with voices, banjo, cello and percussion that is rooted in traditional song.

Moira taught a semester at University of Birmingham (UK), toured and recorded with the acclaimed Theatre of Voices, Fretwork Consort of Viols, The Dufay Collective, Sinfonye and The Concord Ensemble. In 2001 and 2002, she won Barbara Thornton Memorial Scholarship for Medieval Music, given by the Sequentia Ensemble, and recorded Disc three of the Complete Hildegard Works with Sinfonye (Celestial Harmonies). [return to top]

Steve Smith has been performing mandolin, guitar, mandola and vocals for over twenty-five years in about as many types of musical situations as one can imagine. From hard driving traditional Bluegrass, his first love, to New Acoustic, Celtic and Jazz ensembles along with Old-Time and chamber music. His solo shows incorporate original vocal and instrumental works and include unique arrangements of traditional and modern tunes from delicate fingerstyle to hard driving rhythms.

In addition to a regular touring schedule, Smith maintains a busy teaching and workshop schedule including his seventh year as mandolin instructor at Camp Bluegrass and the Puget Sound Guitar Workshop along with a broad pallet of recording sessions on mandolin, mandola and guitar. [return to top]