Celtic Harmonies Festival
Some of the artists performing at the upcoming festival Ronan Browne
Ronan Browne is an Irish musician from Dublin and he started to play music when he was only seven years old. He never had any musical training but took it upon himself to learn different songs. “I have no formal training, I can’t read or write music, but I went to classes and learned a new tune every Tuesday, played it back the next Tuesday, got another new one and promptly forgot the old one. Then when I was roughly 12/13, I fell back in love with the music and been besotted ever since.”
By the time he got to college, he knew he wanted to pursue music as a career. When asked if there was a certain influence that contributed to his decision to pursue that career, “yes, detesting the bully tactics of my architecture studio masters. After 3 years in architecture school and a systematic onslaught on my confidence, I eventually said, “Sod this! I’m leaving!” and I ‘fell back’ on music. No, I never chose it as a career, it just sorta happened.”
As a musician, he has some accomplishments under his belt. “My two main accomplishments are that I pay my bills and yet I still love music. My lesser accomplishments, playing music to millions of people on Good Morning America gave me my biggest audience ever; my biggest live audience was playing with the Afro Celts outside the Colosseum in Rome, to around 300,000 people. I have wined and dined, traveled the world, met some incredible people and become pals with some of the world’s most famous musicians, actors and writers, and no, no names!, all because I play the Irish pipes!”
Forty-seven years later, he continues to make airwaves with his Irish pipes and has captured hearts across the globe. “It (music) has been, and continues to be, the strongest single element in my life. I play music, I listen to it, I dream about it, I make it, I record it. I love music and I need it in my life, yet I know absolutely nothing about the mathematical ‘theory’. Although this is a huge loss and difficulty, I carry on regardless.”
He also made it clear that he is not a chaser. “I have never chased after things. I just play. I play a lot with other people, often being part of projects whilst not instigating them myself. Perhaps I am an anti-hero. More likely, I am keenly aware of all the broken marriages in the music world. When my kids were born, I 'came in off the road’ and re-invented myself as various musical things which allowed me to work from home and not a suitcase (playing weddings, photographing
Kyra Shaughnessy was born in Montreal but was raised near Lake Megantic in a small village called Audet. With two musical parents, Kyra started getting involved with music at a young age. “Both of my parents are very musical and we sang a lot as a family and I also attended the guided meditations my parents led and learned mantras and sacred songs from across the globe at a very young age. I began writing poetry around age 13 and started performing SLAM poetry at age 15, in which I incorporated some acappella singing. My first performance got me a recommendation to, and subsequent contract with, the CBC to be one of five poets representing Montreal in the National Poetry Slam, and I continued performing from then on! I began teaching myself guitar at age 16 and started composing songs right away.”
While she did have some musical training, composing is where her focus lies. After taking violin lessons when she was eleven, she picked up the guitar and started performing. “I also started playing banjo and mandolin later on but have always focused more on composing than on learning any music theory. I did have some music theory lessons when I attended l'école Nationale de la chanson de Granby in 2013. I've also continued sporadic voice lessons privately with my teacher Marie-claire Seguin.”
While she first pursued her SLAM poetry, Kyra switched over to music and composing. “I switched from doing slam to music because I wanted to be able to compose in multiple languages and wasn't comfortable composing dense poetry in any language musical instruments, being a recording engineer, album cover designer, music publisher). I say no to a scary amount of gigs and I’m glad to do so.” other than English.”
She really started to focus on pursuing her music in 2009 with the release of her first acoustic album titled One Step Closer but goes on to explain that she doesn’t view music as a career. “I have never had a very careerist attitude towards music however as it remains a means to convey messages that are important to me more than a means to becoming well-known or "successful" in any mainstream sense. To me, success is the feeling of doing something meaningful with my life. If I no longer felt that, I would stop making music!”
Over the last ten years, she has self-produced five albums and shows no sign of slowing down. “My current recording project, La Rencontre, is also a big accomplishment for me. The project involved collaborating with speakers of endangered languages to create songs centred on words that don’t exist in English or French.”
And it is clear that music holds a very special place in her life. “I believe music has the power to change people’s lives and to influence culture at large. For myself, music is a source of grounding and strength in a world that is often overwhelming and confusing. Music is a way for me to reconnect to something bigger than myself, to remember that I am but a small piece in the web of life and there are certain mysteries I may never be able to grasp.”