New England Celtic Arts will present Matt & Shannon Heaton at Skye Theatre Performing Arts Center in So. Carthage, Maine on Wednesday September 9th and at the Lakeside Theater in Rangeley on Thursday Sept. 10. Both concerts will start at 7:00 PM. A pre-show jam at Skye Theatre will start at 6:15. Audience members are encouraged to bring their instruments and join in with the performers.
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Every Irish traditional musician has a collection of peak session memories: the spontaneous night of tunes after hours in the back of a pub, the house party in rural Clare with that wonderfully ancient concertina player, or the songs swapped backstage at a festival.
Matt and Shannon Heaton share many similar Irish music memories, because they have performed together from their first meeting in Chicago in 1991. Behind their Irish flute- and guitar-driven tunes and stirring songs is a deep well of mutual memories, setbacks, and triumphs.
Having built their act from years of touring together (first with band Siucra, then as a duo), Matt and Shannon have grown into thoroughly entertaining performers. They bring to the stage a depth of shared experience and a love for Irish music; their stage banter is comfortable, often hilarious.
“Their playing is masterful and inventive, their arrangements city-smart and spacious.
Still, they never forget that Irish music is, at its heart, a neighborly form meant for sharing, not showing off,” said Scott Alarik of the Boston Globe
.
Musically speaking, the Heatons play the heck out of their instruments (Irish wood flute/accordion, guitar/bouzouki). After years of study in Chicago, and many nights of music in Clare, Galway, and their adopted home of Boston, Irish Music Magazine’s John O’Regan wrote, “their duet playing is tight, sweet, and tasteful, lacking nothing on either technical expertise or instrumental virtuosity.”
As for their singing, when Matt and Shannon perform centuries-old songs, it feels current, conversational. They make traditional music relevant to American audiences. O’Regan wrote “songwise [there are] hints an older domestic sound, the familiar down home harmonies of The Carter Family and Tim and Mollie O’Brien.”
Before focusing on Irish music, Matt earned a classical guitar degree, played with the Chicago pop group The Flavor Channel, and fronted the Nuevo tango group Orquesta Atipica. Meanwhile Shannon studied flute and ethnomusicology at Northwestern University, joined Matt’s tango band, and took weekend trips to Chicago’s Wat Dhammaram to continue the Saw Oo (lap fiddle) and Thai singing studies she began when she was an exchange student in Thailand. Early exposure to languages and folk melodies instilled in Shannon a love of tradition. From her early piano and recorder lessons (from her mom and Belgian neighbor in Nigeria) to her flute and Irish flute studies in Chicago, Shannon was drawn to traditional music. And when she first heard Irish flute playing on her Grandpa Murphy’s turntable she was hooked on Irish.
Though she specializes in Irish wooden flute and traditional Irish-style singing, adores the Chicago musicians who started her out, and is deeply involved with her local Boston traditional music scene (she co-founded Boston’s Celtic Music Fest and teaches for Boston’s Comhaltas), she has retained a deep interest in world music, especially the music of Thailand. She and husband Matt Heaton included their own Irish-style version of Thai classic “Lao Dueng Duen” on their 2009 release “Lovers’ Well” (their 4th as a duo).
Skye Theater is located 3 miles West of East Dixfield village at 2 Highland Drive off Winter Hill Rd and US RT. 2 in South Carthage. Lakeside Theater is on Main Street in Rangeley. Ticket price is $10.00 at the door*. For reservations at the theater you wish to attend call: Skye Theatre at (207) 562-4445 or Lakeside Theater at 864-5000.
* (Lakeside Theater is $10 in advance and $12.50 at the door. Advance tickets may be purchased at the theater or on the website, http://rangeleymovies.com)
More information is available at: http://www.necelticarts.com.
