An Evening with David Greely, Mairi Rankin & Ailie Robertson at The Haskell.
Doors open at 6.30 pm. The concert will begin promptly at 7.30 pm.
Tickets are available online via Picatic or at The Haskell Box Office on the day of the concert.
Cajun meets Celtic – An Evening with Grammy-nominated David Greely and winner of the ‘Best Group’ in the Live Ireland awards – the Rankin/Robertson Duo !
David Greely’s French Louisiana music is opening a new wing in his tradition. David has taken the swampy syncopations of Cajun music and its renaissance French dialect to new level of sophistication without losing its urgency and texture. In solo acoustic performance, he sounds like two or three fiddles, weaving accompaniment to his vocals as if it’s someone else singing.
Presenting his concerts in English or French, he embraces all the aspects of his heritage that a fiddle and voice can reach- ancient ballads, cane field blues, yearning waltzes and fiery two steps, and melds his ancestral legacy with his own adroit compositions and stories of the rich souls who kept this music and language alive.
David was born in Baton Rouge of Cajun and Irish ancestry, and learned Cajun music on dance hall stages throughout South Louisiana, in the archives of Cajun and Creole music at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette, and from his apprenticeship to Cajun fiddle master and National Heritage Fellow Dewey Balfa. As a founding member of Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys, David toured Folk Festivals worldwide for 23 years, and was nominated for four Grammy Awards. He has received the Louisiana Artist Fellowship Award for Folklife Performance, and is an adjunct instructor of Cajun fiddle at the University of Louisiana.
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Winner of ‘Best Group’ in both the Live Ireland awards and the Tradition In Review awards, the Rankin/Robertson Duo are one of the top Celtic acts in the world. With their band The Outside Track, they were ‘Best Live Act’ nominees in the 2013 MG Alba Scots Traditional Music Awards, and won the German Radio Critics Prize 2014, for their latest album Flash Company. Live Ireland called them, ‘Among the top bands in the world – stunning on every cut!’.
Their marriage of Celtic music, song and dance has been rapturously received around the world. They blend fiddle, harp, step-dance and vocals with breathtaking vitality. Their boundless energy and unmistakable joie de vivre has won them a large following around the globe.This duo puts on one amazing show!
Mairi Rankin – One of the hugely influential Rankin Family – legends on the Canadian music scene – she plays fiddle, sings and also step-dances up a storm. Born in Mabou, Nova Scotia, Mairi has been influenced by some of the best Cape Breton traditional musicians and instructors on the island. She has developed her own unique style by being immersed in such a rich musical culture. She has toured nationally and internationally as a solo artist, a sideman and is a member of the Cape Breton Celtic super group Beòlach. She has performed with the Rankin Sisters, Unusual Suspects and Bruce Guthro to name but a few. Mairi has recorded one solo album, two CDs with Beolach and has been featured on numerous compilations and recordings.
Ailie Robertson from Edinburgh is widely regarded as one of Scotland’s leading young traditional musicians. She is a musician in the broadest sense: composer, arranger, teacher, improviser and harp virtuoso. Her accomplishment on the clarsach is such that leading Irish flautist Niall Keegan said: “Ailie’s synthesis of Irish, Scottish and contemporary harping technique into an individual style represents the realization of otherwise unimagined possibilities for the Celtic harp.” Ailie grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland, and was immersed in the harp world from an early age. She began playing the clarsach when she was eleven years old and through her piano and clarsach lessons she developed a love for both classical and traditional music. She has won a plethora of awards for her harp playing.
