Local Musicians and Singers make the PCG Festival great. Learn more about them here. Gabriel Donohue (Host Friday night Rambling House) Gabriel was born in Athenry, a walled medieval town in CountyGalway founded by Meyler De Bermingham in the 12th Century AD. Small wonder his music is filled with a strong sense of history. Add to this his love of storytelling through song which belongs to another time and place. By age fourteen he was a member of the Leitrim Ramblers Ceili Band. Many summers were spent in the Connemara Gaeltacht where he played with such local legends as Tomas Mc Keown and Tony Molloy. He then joined a showband called Magic which had numerous Top- Ten hits in Ireland. Here he got a taste of the entertainment side of music and appeared on Irish Television. America was calling and a kind Uncle and Aunt in Darien, Connecticut, made the young lad welcome. Thus began what was to be a great love affair with New York City. Here he sought out traditional music legends like Andy McGann and Johnny Cronin and saw the sun come up on Second Avenue most Sunday mornings as the reels and jigs, as well as the occasional song, flowed. In New York he studied fingerstyle guitar, musical theater and voice and honed his skills as a music producer, eventually opening his own studio called Cove Island Productions. Construction was completed by accordionist/carpenter John Whelan. He has embraced many of the new developments in non-linear digital recording and editing while also utilizing vintage tube gear. He was for a time a part of the ensemble of Riverdance star Michael Flatley, with whom he shared an love of Flamenco which became part of the stage show. He spent many Summers in Cape May, New Jersey, and performed regularly at the South Street Seaport in NYC and started a group called Jigsaw with musical friends Eileen Ivers and Joanie Madden. In 1995 Eileen and Gabe, along with Joe Derrane and Felix Dolan, performed at the White House to celebrate the historic Good Friday Accord. In the audience were Irish Prime Minister John Bruton, Gerry Adams and Nobel Peace Prize winner John Hume. In 1999 he began to tour with Irish music legends The Chieftains and added guitar piano and voice to their live performances in Spain, France, Norway, Denmark, Italy, UK and many tours of the USA. He has performed five times at New York’s Carnegie Hall. To celebrate the new Millennium he boarded a ship in Terra del Fuego, Argentina, that would take an intrepid group of explorers to Antarctica. Inside a Volcano called Deception Island on New Years Eve he shared the ship’s stage with Art Garfunkel, Dan Akroyd, Diana Krall, Natalie McMaster, and The Chieftains as they became the House band for New Year’s revelries. In the audience was F.W. DeClerk, Robert Kennedy Jr. and a thousand of America’s top CEO’s. Now Gabriel is busy performing nationwide as well as producing, engineering and mastering cds at his studio in Hawthorne NJ. Sean Earnest - Atlantic Wave (Saturday night performer - Guitar/Bouzouki Workshop) Acoustic guitarist & bouzouki player Sean Earnest’s sensitive yet eclectic accompaniment style has taken him far from his native central Pennsylvania. He is among the most in-demand Celtic traditional music accompanists today and can be heard on stages up and down both coasts of the United States and all points in between. Sean spends most of his time in New York and the greater Northeast, where he can be heard playing and recording with some of the top talents of the genre. Having cut his musical teeth in the vibrant session scenes of Baltimore and New York, Sean honed his guitar and bouzouki craft whilst studying abroad at the University of Limerick’s Irish World Academy of Music & Dance. Friendships forged across the length & breadth of Ireland lead to Sean’s highly successful 2009 tour with Irish supergroup Téada. For the last three years Sean has worked with the legendary McPeake family of Belfast in bringing their ignature sound to American audiences. In the summer of 2011 he rejoined ‘McPeake’ for their third critically-acclaimed American summer tour. Also that year, Sean joined forces with one of the most exciting bands to come out of Scotland, the Paul McKenna Band, for wo highly successful tours of the U.S. and Canada. Most recently Sean has collaborated with Boston singer/songwriter Kyle Carey and violin player Andrew Finn Magill in ‘The Kyle Carey Trio’, a project drawing as much upon Kyle’s fluency in Scots Gaelic song as well as her interest in Appalachian poetry and American roots music. When not touring Sean resides in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he offers personal instruction on both the guitar and bouzouki. Click here to register for Sean's Guitar/Bouzouki workshop: https://secure.blueoctane.net/forms/GV1MZV0VQ6TI Dave Hanson - (Saturday performer & Bodhran workshop presenter) Dave studied the baroque recorder in the Netherlands for 5 years before stumbling across the world of Irish traditional music and the playing of such bodhran greats as Colm Murphy & Johnny McDonagh. While taking his kids to fiddle, accordion, and flute lessons in the 90's, he decided to get in on the fun and learn to play the bodhran he'd stowed away in his closet many years before. In the last 15 years he's played at sessions, festivals, gigs & fleadhs up & down the east coast and in Ireland. Dave teaches the recorder and the bodhran in the Philadelphia area. Click here to register for Dave's Bodhran workshop: https://secure.blueoctane.net/forms/GV1MZV0VQ6TI Terry Kane (Thursday night performer - singer) Terry Kane grew up in a musical family with their roots in Co.Clare and Co. Kerry. She was singing before she could walk and began music lessons at a young age. She received many singing awards and continued to study music in college, culminating in a Master of Music degree from Crane School of Music in Potsdam, NY. Terry has taught music in public school and privately for 30 years. In 1983 she began performing traditional Irish music with her brother Patrick, singing and playing guitar and mandolin. Terry has been studying the Irish language and sean nós singing with native speakers both in the U.S. and in Ireland from singers like Áine Meenaghan and Seamas MacMathuna. She has won the Mid- Atlantic Fleadh Cheoil 4 times and has appeared on Irish Radio (Radio na Gaeltachta) and Irish Television (TG4). Recordings of traditional Irish songs and dance music include “Treasa Ní Chatháin-Some Sean Nós,” and “Trad Linn-Roads of Clare” Last year she released a new CD with harpist Ellen Tepper titled “The Jameson Sisters-Neat!” which has a mixture of songs in English and Irish Gaelic Visit her website at www.treasa.net to hear some of her music and to find translations for many Gaelic songs. Pariac Keane (Saturday performer) McDermott's Handy - (Saturday Performers) Kathy DeAngelo and Dennis Gormley are the husband-wife duo who have been performing traditional Irish music together in the Delaware Valley (South Jersey/Philadelphia region) as McDermott’s Handy since 1979. These talented multi- instrumentalists put on a super concert and combine their strong vocals and equally strong backing accompaniment with a commanding stage presence that comes from hundreds of performances in front of all kinds of audiences. With a huge repertoire they’ve built over 35 years of playing traditional music, they sing in Irish and English. Kathy mainly plays harp and fiddle and occasionally adds 5-string banjo and bodhran. Dennis plays guitar, flute and tinwhistle and can be counted on to add in mandolin or bouzouki when the arrangement requires. Click here to register for Dennis' tin whistle workshop: https://secure.blueoctane.net/forms/GV1MZV0VQ6TI Mary Kay Mann (Thursday night performer - singer) Mary Kay Mann performs beautiful music on Celtic harp and voice, with an occasional mixture of haunting Irish flute and lively whistle tunes. She has appeared at festivals, concert series, and private events throughout the East Coast, as a soloist or with bands, and has released 4 CDs of Celtic music. In 2012, she won 1st place in Irish Slow Airs for Celtic harp at the Mid-Atlantic Fleadh and 3rd place in the All-Ireland Fleadh. She is currently writing a new slow air for harp, based on her Ireland fleadh experience, called "Lament for the Rental Car in Cavan." McGillian's & Friends Ceili Band (Friday night performer) Kevin McGillian is father to Jimmy and John and along with his wife Mary, is responsible for introducing and nurturing the love for and skill in Irish music in his family. Kevin began playing the button accordion at the age of 12 in Legfor Drum, Co. Tyrone. He is self-taught and he credits two accordion players from Co. Tyrone; Edward McNamee and Robert Finley, as early influences. Kevin came to Philadelphia in 1954, was honored in 2001 when he was inducted into the Comhaltas Hall of Fame along with Andy McGann. Jimmy McGillian play banjo and bass (but not at the same time), Like his father, Jimmy knows how to please the dancers at local ceilis and set dances – he is fine dancer as well. Without the McGillians, Philadelphia’s sessuins and ceilis would not have the lift and spirit so often provided by these fine musicians. John McGillian’s first musical influences were his own parents, Mary Boyce from Milford, Co. Donegal, and Kevin McGillian, who started John on a button accordion at the age of six.