Irish band coming to Collar City
Supergroup to help celebrate St. Patrick’s Day weekend
TROY, N.Y. >> Irish supergroup Lúnasa is coming to the Collar City to help celebrate St. Patrick’s Day weekend.
The group will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, 32 2nd St. in downtown Troy.
Lúnasa is one of the most popular traditional music acts from Ireland, said to play with the high energy of a rock band, but also the consummate musicianship of a jazz or classical combo.
Lúnasa has long been one of contemporary Irish music’s leading voices and is currently in its 20th year of touring, with no sign of stopping. In the course of its career, Lúnasa has sold more than a quarter-million albums and boasts a catalogue of seven highly acclaimed, award-winning studio albums.
Over the years, the band has collaborated with notable artists outside the tradition, including Natalie Merchant, Mary-Chapin Carpenter and Tim O’Brien. The band has performed more than 2,000 shows in 36 countries including high-profile concert venues such as The Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, the National Concert Hall in Dublin, Ireland, Paris Bercy and many notable festivals, including Glastonbury, Womadelaide and Edmonton.
From the start, the band’s complex arrangements and unique sound reshaped the boundaries of traditional music and energized audiences around the world. Lunasa’s mostrecent release, a collaboration with Ireland’s RTE concert orchestra, has received critical acclaim in Ireland and beyond.
Lunasa’s current lineup includes Trevor Hutchinson, who achieved fame as bassist with the The Waterboys; uilleann piper Cillian Vallely, who toured with Riverdance and recorded with Bruce Springsteen; Kevin Crawford, widely considered one of Ireland’s greatest flute players; award-winning fiddler Colin Farrell, who has toured with Project West, Grada and Michael McGoldrick; and guitarist Ed Boyd, known on the British folk circuit for his work with performers such as Flook, Kate Rusby and Cara Dillon.
Lúnasa’s inventive arrangements and bass-driven grooves have steered Irish acoustic music into surprising new territory. The band’s recordings have been hailed as some of the best and most important world music albums, bringing the act to the forefront of Celtic music.
“Maintaining the unique, intimate qualities of a musical tradition while at the same time meeting and fulfilling the demands of the contemporary music world is a difficult juxtaposition to achieve, yet Lúnasa have managed to accomplish exactly that,” legendary Irish fiddler Kevin Burke said of the band.
Tickets can be purchased at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall box office or at www.troymusichall.org. For more information about the band, visit www. lunasa.ie.