Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, RUNA brings contemporary and traditional Celtic music to the Mainstay in Rock Hall, MD on Thursday March 14 at 7:30 p.m. Admission is $15. For information and reservations call the Mainstay at 410-639-9133. Information is also available at the Mainstay’s website https://www.mainstayrockhall.org.
RUNA draws on its members’ diverse musical backgrounds in world music, rock, Irish and Celtic music to offer an exhilarating approach to traditional and recently composed Celtic material. With highly energetic tunes, graceful acoustic melodies and gorgeous vocals, RUNA takes music from Ireland, Scotland, Canada, and the United States and creates spellbinding, original arrangements for the tunes. They fuse sounds from Celtic traditions with contemporary tunes and give ages old Celtic tunes a contemporary sound.
Vocalist and step-dancer Shannon Lambert-Ryan, from Philadelphia, has a wide musical background including Celtic, folk, classical, and musical theater. She fronts RUNA with rich, vibrant vocals. She spent three years as the lead female vocalist in Boston-based, world music ensemble, the Guy Mendilow Band. She has performed as a vocalist with a number of artists, including Moya Brennan, John Flynn, and Joe Jencks and has also worked as an actor in theatre and film productions, including an appearance in M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Village”.
Lambert-Ryan co-founded RUNA with her husband, Dublin-born guitarist and composer Fionán de Barra who started playing guitar professionally with “Riverdance” and who has worked as musical director for Moya Brennan (of Clannad) and her band. He also tours regularly with the internationally renowned bands Fiddlers Bid and Clannad and has performed with Solas, Eileen Ivers, Camille O’Sullivan, Zoe Conway, Catriona McKay, Tommy Fleming, Francis Black, Damien Dempsey, Rodrigo y Gabriella, Galldubh and is musical director for Keith & Kristyn Getty.
Percussionist Cheryl Prashker studied classical percussion at McGill University in her native Montreal, Canada. She now lives in Philadelphia and has a well-deserved reputation as a “go-to” percussionist for folk recordings. She spent many years in NY City where she honed her skills playing everything from Rock and Roll and Klezmer, to Celtic and Middle Eastern music.
Dave Curley from County Galway, Ireland is a singer, step-dancer and sensational multi-instrumentalist (guitar, banjo, mandolin, and bodhrán). He studied at the University of Limerick, earning his BA in Irish Music and Dance. Curley has toured extensively in Ireland, Europe and the USA with the traditional Irish band Slide as the lead vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and dancer. Dave joins forces with RUNA on their tours in the United States, adding to the energy and textures of their music with his many talents.
Special guest for the Mainstay’s RUNA concert will be New York’s Matt Mancuso who was lead fiddler for the world tour of “Lord of the Dance” and is currently the fiddler for the Cathie Ryan Band, and the Mickey Finns. He has also toured Europe with the Irish super-group Grada. His Irish and jazz influences make him a unique player in the world music scene. Both Mancuso and RUNA are looking forward to this chance to play together but it is the Mainstay audience that benefits most from this unique opportunity to see RUNA with this powerful fiddler.
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