New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ Shore File Media) - When more than two dozen musicians from many different genres join forces, cacophony could be the result. Not so with Childsplay, whose new album 'Waiting for the Dawn' will be released June 23. United by their love of fiddle music in all its forms, from Americana, traditional Irish, French-Canadian, Cape Breton, bluegrass, Appalachian, and Scandinavian styles to jazz, swing, and classical music, and their common bond with fiddlemaker extraordinaire Bob Childs, Childsplay's virtuosic members create a joyful, soulful sound that transcends boundaries, including, for the first time, vocals and vocal harmonies.
Accomplished musicians all, they range from teenagers to players with decades of experience. Some are conservatory-trained, some learned from generations of family musicians. Hailing from the United States, Canada and Europe, many have traveled worldwide to study, perform and teach, and among them they have appeared on hundreds of recordings and thousands of stages. On 'Waiting for the Dawn,' those journeys meet to join a world of music together, a meeting of shared musicianship bound by appreciation. Several also contribute compositions and arrangements to the album.
The great Maine musician Otto Soper once told Bob Childs that music would take him places that money wouldn't, and that he would make all his great friends through music. "In that spirit," Childs muses, "let me say that no greater friendships could exist than those I have made with the members of Childsplay."
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The Childsplay musicians on 'Waiting for the Dawn' include:
Fiddles:
Sam Amidon, who started performing folk songs at the age of eight, formed a group called Assembly that garnered national attention before he was out of high school. Sam has released two rock albums, including 2008's 'All Is Well,' about which Pitchfork raved: "Amidon doesn't just update the old world to the new, but finds the roots of the new world in the old. " He also plays banjo on the album.
Bonnie Bewick has been a member of the Boston Symphony since 1987. She has also played with the Columbus Symphony and participated in summer music festivals at Interlochen, and Spoleto. Ms. Bewick has made solo appearances with the Boston Pops, the New England Philharmonic, and the Cape Ann Symphony, as well as with a number of West Coast orchestras and is currently on the faculty of The Boston Conservatory.
Hanneke Cassel's playing was described by the Boston Globe as "exuberant and rhythmic, somehow both wild and innocent, delivered with captivating melodic clarity and an irresistible playfulness." She is the 1997 U.S. National Scottish Fiddle Champion and holds a Bachelors of Music in Violin Performance from Berklee College of Music. Hanneke's most recent album 'Silver' creates a uniquely American approach to Celtic music. On 'Waiting for the Dawn,' Hanneke wrote and arranged "The Evenstar" and wrote the additional melody on "Christmas in Washington" as well as the title track.
Bob Childs has been making violins for over 30 years. After being introduced to violinmaking by Ivie Mann in Maine, Bob did six years of apprenticeships with Mittenwald-trained violinmakers Anton Smith and Michael Weller before setting up his shop in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As a fiddler, Bob was immersed for many years in the Maine fiddle tradition before becoming heavily influenced by Irish music. In addition to twenty years of performing with Childsplay, Bob was part of the Old Gray Goose and the Moosetones, two seminal bands in Maine.
Graham Dezarn, the 24-year-old son of charter Childsplay member Joe DeZarn and great-grandson of noted eastern Kentucky fiddler Bill DeZarn, grew up in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, and took his first fiddle lessons at age 11. Soon afterward, he began learning bodhran and percussion from Bhagwan Jesse Winch and has been influences by such fiddlers as Willy Kelly, Liz Carroll, James Kelly and Antoin Mac Gabhann. Graham plays fiddle and banjo on stages and porches, at dances and in living rooms and kitchens.
Sheila Falls-Keohane earned her Bachelor of Music degree in violin performance from New England Conservatory. While attending N.E.C., she was awarded a Tanglewood fellowship. Upon graduation, she joined The New World Symphony and served as a rotating concertmaster for three years. Sheila is also a three-time North American Champion in Irish fiddling won the All Ireland Championship in Kilkenny, Ireland at age 15. Sheila is now a member of The National Lyric Opera Orchestra. She has been on the music faculty at Wheaton College for the past ten years and is the director of Wheaton's World Music Ensemble.
Ellen Gawler is a celebrated fiddler from Maine conversant in many diverse styles, including Irish, Maritime, Quebecois, Shetland, and New England. While a teenager, she traveled to Scotland, Ireland, and the Shetland Islands to study and collect tunes. She was a member of the Maine Country Dance Orchestra and The Old Grey Goose, and has recorded two albums with the highly acclaimed folk trio Trillium and one with Ladies of the Lake, a group she formed with Maine's leading Celtic artists. Ellen, husband John Gawler, and daughters Molly, Edith, and Elsie have warmed the hearts of audiences in their recordings and performances as the Gawler Family, and John and Molly also perform on 'Waiting for the Dawn' (John on banjo, Molly on harmony vocals). A Suzuki violin/fiddle teacher of two de cades, Ellen is founder and musical director of The Pineland Fiddlers.
With his fine fiddling and stage presence, Steve Hickman has electrified audiences for close to 30 years. Besides playing for Childsplay and for numerous bands in the Washington, D.C. area, Steve has toured the world as a featured fiddler for the Fiddle Puppets and Evening Star. One of the world's leading authorities on the arcane art of hambone, Steve is renowned for his hambone antics (not to mention his handlebar mustache). Steve occasionally lives in King George, Virginia, but spends much of his time traveling to play at dance workshops, festivals, and camps throughout the United States and the world. Steve and his wife Delora Padavan appeared on two recent episodes of ABC's reality show Wife Swap.
Debby Knight's interest in traditional dance music was piqued when she discovered that her great-grandfather, Erasmus Bacon, had played for square dances in upstate New York. She found his old fiddle in her grandmother's attic and was determined to learn to play. Debby has directed the large Boston-based contradance band, Roaring Jelly, for the past 10 years and regularly plays piano and fiddle for contradances in the Boston area and beyond.
Mary Lea is known for her mastery of many musical styles. Classically trained, Mary has been playing dance music professionally on the violin and viola since 1977. While her focus has been on contra, square, and English country-dance music, she has also played extensively couple and quadrille music of the 19th and early 20th centuries, including polkas, waltzes, ragtime, tangos, and blues. She has been a member of the nationally-known bands Bare Necessities and Yankee Ingenuity since 1978, played with BLT from 1982 to 2001, and has recorded with each of these groups plus three of her own productions. She also plays viola on 'Waiting for the Dawn.'
Traditional Irish fiddler Laurel Martin learned her music from Seamus Connolly, with whom she studied under a Traditional Arts Apprenticeship grant from the National Endowment for the Arts from 1990-1993. She later collaborated with Connolly to publish the 2002 book/CD combination 'Forget Me Not: Fifty Memorable Traditional Irish Tunes'. Her first solo CD, 'The Groves', was released in 2006. She has performed and taught workshops at many festivals in the United States and abroad. Laurel is an instructor of Traditional Irish Fiddle for the Boston College Irish Studies program and the director of the Fiddleheads ensemble at Wellesley College. In 2002 she was awarded a Traditional Arts Apprenticeship grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, this time as a master teacher.
Naomi Morse, a native of Vermont, has been playing for contra and English Country dancing for over 10 years and is known for her energetic fiddle playing in many bands, including Night Watch and Housetop. Naomi has been on staff at CDSS music and dance weeks at Pinewoods, Ogontz, Buffalo Gap, and Christmas Country Dance School in Berea, Kentucky, and dance weekends around the country. Naomi lived in York, England, for over a year, where she studied the traditional music of the British Isles and Sweden and became one of the most sought after fiddlers in Yorkshire and a member of the Irish folk band The Kimberlite Pipes. She has toured extensively throughout the United States and Europe with the world-music ensemble Northern Harmony. She also plays viola on 'Waiting for the Dawn.'
New England fiddler and folk singer Lissa Schneckenburger is a 2001 graduate of The New England Conservatory of Music. Her mentors include Greg Boardman, Alasdair Fraser, David Kaynor and Hankus Netsky. Lissa has recorded three solo albums and three band collaborations. Folk Roots raved about her 'Different Game' CD: "Lissa blows out the cobwebs in no uncertain fashion." She has played all over the world as a fiddler and vocalist, including appearances in Russia, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Canada and the United States. Her television appearances include the PBS specials "A Taste of Chanukah" and "A Taste of Passover." She also sings harmony vocals on 'Waiting for the Dawn.'
Sarah Thomae has been playing the violin since she was four. She played with many classical orchestras and ensembles in the Boston area, including the New England Conservatory Youth Preparatory Orchestra, before falling in love with Irish music at the age of 13. Studying with Laurel Martin, Sarah was introduced to the traditional music of Counties Clare, Galway, and Sligo. During summers at Boston College's Gaelic Roots festival, she had the opportunity to study with notable Irish musicians, including Charlie Ben Lennon, Liz Carrol, Kevin Burke and Paddy Glackin. She has appeared as a guest recording artist on 'Forget Me Not: Fifty Memorable Traditional Irish Tunes'.'
Cello:
Ariel Friedman graduated from Northwestern University in 2008, where she studied cello performance with Hans Jorgen Jensen, and will graduate from New England Conservatory in 2011 with a Masters in Contemporary Improvisation. A winner of ASTA's 2009 Alternative Styles Award, she is an inventive cellist who plays in a band with her sister Mia and performs, tours, and records with Hanneke Cassel. She is also a member of the new Boston-based girl band, Long Time Courting.
Bass:
Ralph Gordon brings more than 35 years of musical experience to the bass and cello. He is equally at home in folk, old time, swing, jazz, blues, bluegrass, klezmer, and chamber group settings and plays all styles of music for dancers. Classically trained, Ralph studied music at West Virginia University and the Manhattan School of Music. He has performed with the New Jersey Symphony, toured with Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians and made four recordings with the groundbreaking folk ensemble Trapezoid. Ralph can be heard on more than 100 recordings. He teaches bass and performance classes at summer camps across the country. "His playing is more sophisticated and technically accomplished than the next 10 string players of any sort," enthused the Charleston Post Courier.
Flute/Accordion:
Irish flute player/singer Shannon Heaton became involved in the Irish music scene on the north side of Chicago while obtaining a degree in ethnomusicology from Northwestern University, spent summers in Ireland and has been playing tunes ever since. She is active as a composer and arranger of traditional music and has performed with numerous ensembles, including the Robbie O'Connell Band, Keith Murphy Fair Play, Laura Cortese, and A Celtic Christmas Sojourn. Sing Out Magazine called her work "richly orchestrated . . . an almost fugal multiplicity of voices." Shannon is active as a session player, teaches at Boston College and Harvard, and helped to found the Boston Celtic Music Festival. Shannon wrote and arranged the 'Wating for the Dawn' track "Frost Place/Otherwise Engaged/The Aughamore."
Guitar:
Newfoundland-born Keith Murphy, a proficient multi-instrumentalist, has become a valued band member (Nightingale, Assembly) and sought-after sideman on guitar, mandolin, and foot percussion. Keith has accompanied such noted players as Liz Carroll, Martin O'Connor, Winifred Horan, and Oliver Schroer in the studio and on stages throughout North America and Europe. He is also a noted composer of instrumental music based on traditional; he has published a collection of his work as the book Black Isle Music. Keith currently leads a Celtic music class for the Brattleboro Music Center and founded the Northern Roots Festival in Brattleboro, Vermont. His singing and arrangements are featured on his solo recording 'Bound For Canaan'. He wrote and arranged "SamSam Amidon/ Good Morning to Your Night Cap" on 'Waiting for the Dawn' and also plays piano and sings harmony vocals on the album.
Vocals:
Acclaimed vocalist Aoife O'Donovan has been turning heads throughout the music scene for the past six years. Called "Americana's newest darling" by USA Today, Aoife is a founding member of newgrass sensations Crooked Still, with whom she tours the world for most of the year. She is also a member of the folk-noir trio Sometymes Why. Though she is just beginning to play shows featuring her own material, Aoife's quirky original songs have garnered praise worldwide. Originally from Newton, Massachusetts, Aoife continues to make her home in Boston. She also plays piano on 'Waiting for the Dawn.'
Harp:
Kathleen Guilday has been performing traditional Irish music on the harp for nearly 30 years, both as a soloist and as a member of various New England area groups. An All-Ireland harp champion, Kathleen studied traditional style in Ireland with Noreen O'Donoghue and Maire Ni Chathasaigh. Her repertoire includes dance tunes, slow airs, and compositions of the 18th-century Irish harper Turlough O'Carolan. Kathleen has appeared at Boston's Symphony Hall with the popular Irish band The Chieftains, and entertained the Prime Minister of Ireland at the White House on St. Patrick's Day 2000.
