Not Just Another Coffeehouse - "Celtic Harpist,Kathleen Guilday, Fiddlers Laurel, Sarah and Nate Martin"

Celtic Harpist Kathleen Guilday will be joined by fiddlers Laurel and Sarah Martin and Nate Martin, bass, for an outstanding evening of Irish heritage music. And during intermission enjoy our home made desserts and free trade beverages.

An All-Ireland harp champion, Kathleen Guilday has appeared at Boston's Symphony Hall with The Chieftains and entertained President and Mrs. Clinton and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern at the White House on St. Patrick's Day 2000. For many years Kathleen taught at the Comhaltas Ceoltóiri Éireann music school in Boston and has adjudicated preliminary All-Ireland competitions at the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest Regional Fleadhanna Ceoil. Kathleen can be heard on fiddler Séamus Connolly's recordings Notes From My Mind and Here and There, accordion player Joe Burke's album The Tailor's Choice, Laurel Martin's CD The Groves, and on the Childsplay fiddle ensemble recordings Heaven and Earth, Waiting for the Dawn, As the Crow Flies, and concert DVDs Fiddles, Fiddlers, and a Fiddlemaker and Childsplay Live From the Zeiterion Theatre.

Lyrical, warm and lilting, Laurel Martin's fiddling is colored by the intricate ornamentation and rhythmic bowing characteristic of the old musicians of Clare, East Galway and Sligo that are her musical influences. Laurel studied the regional fiddle styles of Ireland with Master fiddler Séamus Connolly in the early 1990s under a Traditional Arts Apprenticeship grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and subsequently assumed the role of master teacher when two of her students were awarded Traditional Arts Master Apprentice Grants by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Laurel served on the faculty of the Boston College Irish Studies program as an instructor of Irish fiddle from 1994 until 2007 and currently teaches at the Indian Hill Music School in Littleton, Massachusetts. Laurel performs and offers workshops throughout the United States and abroad and, with her mentor Séamus Connolly, published the book and CD set Forget Me Not: Fifty Memorable Traditional Irish Tunes. In addition to her solo recording, The Groves, and her work on Tony Cuffe’s CD Sae Will We Yet, Laurel can be heard on the Childsplay fiddle ensemble recordings Childsplay Live, Heaven and Earth, Waiting for the Dawn and As the Crow Flies and the concert DVD Childsplay Live From the Zeiterion Theatre.

Sarah Martin grew up in a house full of music. At a young age she began distracting her loved ones by humming to herself constantly, and she has never stopped. Trained as a classical violinist and violist, Sarah has gradually moved towards the traditional Irish fiddle music that her mother, Laurel Martin, plays, teaches and shares at home. Sarah also loves singing, composing and playing guitar, and in 2010 she released an album of her own songs, In-Between Lullabies.

Nate Martin, bass, has been surrounded by music and musicians his whole life. He grew up hearing and playing Irish music, but in his teenage years was drawn towards classical music, especially orchestras. After studying classical music at Boston University and New England Conservatory and completing an apprenticeship with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Nate has been pursuing music in all its forms from his new home in Belfast Maine. He teaches privately and at the Bay Chamber Music School, and is a co-Artistic Director of the Boston-based group Palaver Strings.