Ireland's Karan Casey to Launch U.S. Tour

KARAN CASEY, one of Ireland's finest singer-songwriters - and a leading advocate for gender balance in the Irish folk and traditional music scene - will make her first U.S. tour in three years from September 1-18, a slate of 13 performances that will highlight her recent work, including her album Hieroglyphs That Tell the Tale and new, as-yet-unreleased material.

Her passion for storytelling through songs, her ability to give centuries-old lyrics and themes a universal, modern setting, and her belief that music can help change the world have enabled Casey to forge a deep connection with audiences everywhere.

A Waterford native, Casey was among the vanguard of the Irish music revival's "third wave" of the late 1980s/early 1990s, a founding member of the seminal Irish American band Solas before launching her solo career in 1999, and going on to record 11 albums.

Though steeped early on in Irish traditional and folk music, Casey has long followed an eclectic path, whether studying classical music (she is a talented pianist), fronting jazz bands or working with Frank Harte, a much-revered folk/traditional singer from Dublin. The list of artists she's performed with is similarly diverse: James Taylor, Maura O'Connell, Karen Matheson, the Boston Pops Orchestra, Tim O'Brien, The Chieftains, The Dubliners, and Béla Fleck, among others.

On her September 2022 tour, which will include her fourth appearance on NPR's legendary Mountain Stage syndicated folk music radio program, Casey will be accompanied by a pair of accomplished musicians, both members of popular Irish band Beoga: Niamh Dunne (fiddle, vocals), who comes from a rich family heritage of Irish traditional music; and Seán Óg Graham (guitar), a talented arranger, composer and producer who is in great demand as an accompanist.

Praised as a first-rate interpreter of traditional and contemporary songs alike, Casey has over the years added another dimension to her music: songwriting, a talent she first displayed on her 2005 album Chasing the Sun and to full effect in 2014 on Two More Hours, her first recording of entirely original material. Casey has lately explored new modes of performance through accompanying herself on piano as well as branching out into spoken word and theatre. Her musical play I Walked Into My Head directed by Sophie Motley was performed in 2021 at the Kilkenny Arts Festival.

Karen Casey U.S. Tour Dates

Sept 1 - Barnard, VT - Feast and Field / BarnArts

Sept 3 - Cumberland, RI - Blackstone River Theatre

Sept 4 - Randolph, VT - New World Festival

Sept 6 - New York, NY - Joe's Pub

Sept 7 - Vienna, VA - Jammin Java

Sept 8 - Charlottesville, VA - Blue Ridge Irish Music / The Haven

Sept 9-11 - Greensboro, NC - North Carolina Folk Festival

Sept 13 - Rockville, MD - St. Mark Presbyterian Church

Sept 14 - Somerville, MA - The Burren

Set 15 - Old Saybrook, CT - The Kate

Sept 16 - Hopewell, NJ - Hopewell Theatre

Sept 17 - Frostburg, MD - Appalachian Festival / Frostburg State U. Frostberg Palace Theatre

Sept 18 - Harrisonburg, VA - Mountain Stage / James Madison U. - Forbes Center for the Performing Arts

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