On Thursday, June 22, Old South Church welcomes Owen Kennedy and Ethan Stokes
Tischler for their return performance. Owen and Ethan opened for Coig back in
December 2022. Doors will open at 6:30pm. Concert begins at 7pm. Admission: Adults
$20, Seniors and Students $15. Tickets can be reserved by calling 207-491-5919 or
available at the door.
Residing with his family in Winthrop, Maine, Owen Kennedy is an eighteen-year-old
fiddler whose love of traditional music and enthusiasm for performing has captivated
audiences from San Diego to the Shetland Islands and all-over New England. Owen is the
2022 New England Regional Open Scottish Fiddle Champion, the 2021 Junior US
National Scottish Fiddle Champion, and won the 2021 Young Stars of Maine “Glenn
Jenks Future in Music” prize. He was selected for Best of All Things Irish from the Maine
Irish Heritage Center and received a Passim Iguana Music Fund Grant for work on his
debut album, “Oh When: Now”, which is out… now! As an emerging musician rooted in
the Maine Maritime music tradition and exploring the music of Scotland, “Oh When:
Now” features the tunes Owen has loved for years as well as newer favorites from
Scotland, Cape Breton, and Shetland. The album is a musical snapshot of the places Owen
has visited and the musicians he’s played with and learned from. Many talented Maine
folks were part of this project: it was recorded with Owen Marshall, mixed by Noah
Fishman, mastered by Lincoln Clapp, with album design by Elsie Gawler and duplication
from Crooked Cove.
Owen performs in duos with both Seán Heely and Ethan Tischler and in various groups
including the Pineland Fiddlers, the Young Tradition Youth Commission, and as a Youth
Artist Leader in Vermont’s Young Tradition Touring Group. Owen has shared the stage
with Natalie MacMaster & Donnell Leahy, Genticorum, Claude Méthé, Pete Sutherland
& Oliver Scanlon, Andrea Beaton & Troy MacGillivray, and Owen Marshall. Owen is
also wrapping up a solo project, 50 Fiddlers from 50 States, before heading up to Cape
Breton to attend the Beinn Mhàbu Gaelic Foundations: Living Cultures program for his
first year of university in the fall of 2023.
Ethan Stokes Tischler is a Maine-based musician/educator with roots in the Champlain
Valley of Vermont. For the last many years, he’s been teaching, performing, and
recording music, mainly in Burlington Vermont and Mid-Coast Maine. Alongside his own
solo projects, he delights in playing with Elsie Gawler as Elsie & Ethan, and with the
Gawler Sisters and Gawler Family as a whole.
As a teacher, he has worked in groups and one-on-one with students in Vermont and
Maine, in the Music for Sprouts and Village School programs at Bread & Butter Farm,
and the Belfast Adventure Education Program and Sweetland School here in Mid-Coast.
He appreciates working with music learners of all ages, and strives to pass along key
foundations and theoretical concepts in music alongside a genuine joy and lightness in
music-making as a whole.
On the performance side of things, he feels fortunate to have played alongside numerous
wonderful musicians in the Burlington area, and Maine. Generally, he focuses on acoustic
guitar and vocals, but has been known to pick up the fiddle, banjo, and electric guitar as
well. Songcraft is at the heart – the magical blend of melody, harmony and poetry that
pulls the song together. Look to the album Across the Waking Skies for another batch of
original Ethan tunes.
As a budding sound engineer, he’s been fortunate to have had several opportunities to
record the Gawler Family Band for music festivals around the Northeast, Bennett
Konesni and the Worksong Quartet for Sea Shanty workshops in Sweden, the Pineland
Fiddlers for their forthcoming album, and his album Across the Waking Skies this last
year. Ethan has run live sound in Mid-Coast for the Bagaduce Music Library in Blue Hill,
Belfast Flying Shoes, and the Mid-Coast Reparations Collective.
Most of all, he believes in the power of music to bring us together and enrich our lives, no
matter when and how we engage with it.
To learn more about Owen Kennedy visit www.fiddlerokennedy.com
To learn more about Ethan Stokes Tischler visit www.elsieandethan.co