concert_feb-18-2011

An evening of Irish, Scottish, and Maritime songs

with

Robbie O’Connell, Dan Milner, and Edinburgh native Ed Miller

Friday, February 18th, 2011, at 8pm

First Parish Watertown

35 Church Street, Watertown, MA

$20 General Admission, $15 seniors, students, and parish members

Buy in advance! http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/154946

Robbie O’Connell was born in Waterford, Ireland and grew up in Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary. He began to play guitar and sing at age thirteen and soon became a regular performer at the hotel’s weekly folk concerts. During school vacations Robbie worked as an Irish entertainer in the U.S.A. A nephew of the Clancy Brothers, he began touring with his uncles in 1977 and recorded 3 albums with them. In 1979 he moved to Franklin, Massachusetts. With the release of his first solo album (“Close to the Bone”) in 1982, Robbie emerged as an artist of major stature. In 2006 he began an ongoing collaboration with his cousins Aoife and Donal Clancy. “The Clancy Legacy,” their first CD together, was released in 2010.

Dan Milner has been involved in Irish traditional song all his life as a singer, author, collector and organizer. A cultural geographer and former National Park Ranger, he teaches Storytelling in Song: The Ballad Tradition at New York University and is on the staff of The Journal of New York Folklore. Dan has made six recordings including Irish Ballads & Songs of the Sea, and Irish Songs from Old New England for Folk-Legacy. His 2009 CD, Irish Pirate Ballads, received two Indie nominations: Best Album and Best Song - World Traditional. Smithsonian Folkways will release Civil War Naval Songs, featuring Dan, David Coffin and Jeff Davis, in April 2011.

Ed Miller has been hailed as "one of the finest singers to come out of the Scottish Folksong Revival" and as "one of Scotland's best singing exports." Originally from Edinburgh, he has been living in Austin, TX for many years, where he gained graduate degrees in Folklore and Geography at the University of Texas. Ed performs in concerts, clubs, house concerts, festivals, Highland Games and Burns Suppers, as well as for lectures and workshops and has recorded 8 CD's of Scottish songs. Since 2000 he has led folk-music based tours to Scotland every summer.

Don’t miss this rare opportunity to see these three talented, congenial performers in such a lovely, intimate setting!