Ireland's Dervish play The Katherine Hepburn Cultural Center March 19

Press release

DERVISH, “ICONS OF IRISH FOLK MUSIC” EMBARK ON THEIR 30TH ANNUAL TOUR OF THE USA IN FEBRUARY/MARCH 2024

THE BAND WILL PERFORM MUSIC FROM THEIR FORTHCOMING ALBUM THE GREAT IRISH SONGBOOK CHAPTER 2 TO BE RELEASED IN LATE 2024

Dervish, one of the world’s most creative interpreters of Irish folk music and recently recognized with a BBC Lifetime Achievement Award, have confirmed they are planning to return to the USA in early 2023.Having devoted the last three decades to gently reinventing the traditional songs of their homeland, Dervish were widely celebrated in 2019 for their album The Great Irish Songbook which featured such luminaries as Vince Gill, David Gray, Rhiannon Giddens, Steve Earle, and others.

Dervish’s founding members were childhood friends in County Sligo—the same creatively fertile region that spawned a group of legendary fiddle players who emigrated to the U.S. in the 1920s, then recorded the first known Irish-music albums of any genre. As young musicians in 1989, the band members were commissioned to record an album of music from the renowned Sligo tradition. Despite feverish response from all around the world, Dervish turned down record-deal offers and launched their own label, releasing their sophomore effort Harmony Hill in 1993 and immediately seeing the album climb the Irish mainstream charts.

Through the years, Dervish has appeared at some of the world’s biggest festivals, from Glastonbury to Rock in Rio, with the “great and good” of the entertainment industry including while steadily making their name as of the foremost purveyors of Irish folk music of their generation.