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Headliners 2007
Paddy Keenan and John Walsh
"In Irish music there are legends and legends and then there's Paddy Keenan."
Visit Paddy's website...
Visit John's website...
 Piper Paddy Keenan was born in Ireland to a travelling family steeped in traditional music; both Paddy's father and grandfather were uilleann pipers. Paddy himself took up the pipes at the age of ten, playing his first major concert at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, when he was 14. He later played with the rest of his family in a group called The Pavees and later with one of the most influential bands of the 1970s, The Bothy Band.
The Bothy Band forever changed the face of Irish traditional music, merging a driving rhythm section with traditional Irish tunes in ways that had never been heard before. Those fortunate enough to have seen the band live have never forgotten the impression they made -- one reviewer likened the experience to "being in a jet when it suddenly whipped into full throttle along the runway."
Paddy was one of the Bothy Band's founding members, and his virtuosity on the pipes combined with the ferocity of his playing made him, in the opinion of many, its driving force. Bothy Band-mate Donal Lunny once described Paddy as "the Jimi Hendrix of the pipes"; more recently, due to his genius for improvisation and counter-melody, he has been compared to jazz great John Coltrane.
Generally acknowledged as the most accomplished uilleann piper performing today, Paddy is certainly one of the most brilliant musicians of his generation.
Performing with Paddy: John Walsh
 John Walsh is an Irish guitarist living in the New York area. John grew up in Kilkenny, Ireland, where he picked up his first instrument, the tin whistle, under the supervision of Brother Jacob at the CBS school in Callan, Co. Kilkenny. After learning some tunes on the whistle, his mother’s guitar seemed a logical progression. To his luck a local musician, John Travers, was kind enough to show him around the fretboard, and soon John found a thriving music scene in Kilkenny.
John moved to the US with his wife Carole and their children in 1992. He studied Audio Engineering and now owns and runs St. Canicea’s Backyard, a recording studio specializing in Irish traditional music. John has worked with great musicians such as Pat Kilbride, Chris Brown, Keith O’Neilll, Paddy Keenan, Eric Everett, Frankie Gavin, David Power, Maria Miller, The Derivatives, Ciaran Somers, Seanachai and others.
John’s debut album, Aon Dó Trí, has recently been released.
The Fuchsia Band
The lads from Cork with their own brand of Irish tradition
Visit the Fuchsia Band's
website
Visit the Fuchsia Band's MySpace page
 The band that could -- The Fuchsia Band will headline at their third CelticFest MS. Sit down for one of their sets, and you'll see why!
The Fuchsia Band, from Co. Cork, Ireland, is fronted by singer, dancer, seannachie ("storyteller") Máirtín de Cógáin, who won the acclaimed All-Ireland title for his storytelling. Máirtín's tireless stage presence and penchant for telling grand tales are a staple of the Fuchsia Band's performances.
Eóin Verling began to play the button-box (accordion) at the age of 5 in a marching band. Despite winning numerous titles and medals, he put the box aside for a while in his late teens for want of women and porter. Eoin's back at it now with a vengeance, tickling the pearlized plastic as a founding member of the Fuchsia Band, as well as a staple ceili band musician back home.
Brian McGillicuddy has been twanging with gusto and no little skill on the banjo and mandolin since his early years. Starting as many do on the tin whistle, Brian saw a truck-full of banjos for sale at his the fleadh. And so, a childs longing for a new and different instrument, a mothers ambition, and a fathers willingness to buy anything for anyone, having just emerged from his third public house of the day, brought about the deposit there and then on Brian's first banjo and a promise to pay Mr. Cussen the balance when times got better. The rest, as they say, is history...
Seeds of Fuchsia are being sewn around the world…their mission is to plant the craic everywhere and grow everyone out of himself or herself, up towards the sun and into FUCHSIALAND!!!!!
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