Susan McKeown

The traditional vocal sounds of Ireland are fused with a modern urban sensibility by Dublin-born and New York-based vocalist Susan McKeown (pronounced "mick-yone"). Accompanied by her band, the Chanting House, McKeown's alto vocals have inspired comparisons to June Tabor, Chrissie Hynde, Sarah McLachlan, Grace Slick, and Sandy Denny. McKeown's musical approach was described by Time magazine as "the kind of music that will link Ireland's musical past with its future."

Since immigrating to the U.S. in 1990 with a scholarship to attend the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City, McKeown has been attracting attention with her dynamic vocals and enthusiastic stage persona.

The Chanting House, which initially focused on an updated version of traditional Irish music when founded by McKeown, Eileen Ivers, and Seamus Egan, increasingly added elements of modern rock after the departures of Ivers and Egan in 1993.

Although they released a pair of self-produced cassettes, Chanting House Live and Snakes, in the early '90s, McKeown and the Chanting House came into their own with the 1-800-PRIME-CD-released Bones in 1996. McKeown and Chanting House bass/bass clarinet/tin whistle player Lindsey Horner collaborated on an album of seasonal songs, Through the Bitter Frost and Snow, in 1997. McKeown was a featured vocalist in the Obie award-winning musical Peter and Wendy, singing Johnny Cunningham's score at the Geffen Theater in Los Angeles in December 1997 and on the cast album released by Alula. The second McKeown and Chanting House CD, Bushes & Briars, released in 1998, featured musical accompaniment by Celtic musicians Cunningham, Andy Irvine, Jerry O'Sullivan, and former bandmember Egan. Also in 1998, McKeown released Mighty Rain on Depth of Field. In 1999, Mother: Celebration of Mothers & Motherhood, by McKeown, Cathie Ryan, and Robin Spielberg, was issued on North Star, and the McKeown album Lowlands appeared on Green Linnet in fall 2000. McKeown released A Winter Talisman, on which she was joined by Cunningham and Aidan Brennan, on her own Sheila-na-Gig label in 2001; she also self-released Prophecy in 2002. World Village issued Sweet Liberty in 2004 and followed with Blackthorn: Irish Love Songs in 2006.

from Wikipedia:

Susan McKeown (born 1967) is an Irish songwriter, folk singer and producer.

Early years

Susan McKeown was born on February 6, 1967 to John Ryan and Jane Ann (Jeannie) McKeown in Terenure, Dublin, Ireland. She was greatly influenced by her mother, an organist and composer who died in 1982. Susan briefly attended the Municipal College of Music, Chatham Row (now incorporated into the Dublin Institute of Technology), Dublin, as a teenager before abandoning a promised opera career in order to sing folk and rock. Together with John Doyle, McKeown formed The Chanting House in 1989. Mainly performing as a duo, they toured Europe with Donogh Hennessy and other musicians, the set list consisting of original songs and traditional tunes. They released a cassette-only album called The Chanting House in 1990.

Immigration to New York

Upon graduating from University College Dublin McKeown was awarded a scholarship to attend The American Musical and Dramatic Academy in Manhattan. So in 1990, with a bursary from The Arts Council of Ireland she relocated to New York City. Doyle followed and they were soon to join forces with Seamus Egan and Eileen Ivers with whom they recorded one live cassette and one track, "If I Were You", which they contributed to the album 'Straight Outta Ireland' in 1993. McKeown's musical collaboration with Doyle ended with his departure in the summer of 1993.

Solo career

With new musicians, as "Susan McKeown and the Chanting House" she performed at clubs such as Sin-é, Fez, The Bottom Line and The Bowery Ballroom and recorded a cassette album - "Snakes" in 1993. But it was the release of Bones in 1995 -- an album of original songs with her take on a centuries-old keen (caoineadh) and a classic arrangement of Robert Burns' "Westlin' Winds" (later recorded by Fairport Convention) -- that secured her reputation as a singer-songwriter and launched her solo touring and recording career. In 1997 she recorded three albums: her own Bushes & Briars (Alula), Peter & Wendy, the soundtrack to the OBIE award-winning Mabou Mines theatrical production of the same name which was composed by Johnny Cunningham, and Through the Bitter Frost & Snow, a collaboration with bassist Lindsey Horner. She was beginning to divide her work into albums of traditional music (Bushes and Briars, 1998) and singer-songwriter albums (Bones, 1995; Prophecy, 2002).

McKeown suggested to Cathie Ryan and Robin Spielberg the idea of recording an album of songs relating to motherhood, resulting in The Mother Album (1999). McKeown began producing with the albums Lowlands (2000 Green Linnet) and Sweet Liberty (2004 World Village/Harmonia Mundi). Probably most successful among her traditional song releases, the latter earning a BBC Folk Music Award nomination for her setting of an English gypsy song with a Mariachi band. Her second release for Harmonia Mundi's World Village imprint was Blackthorn (2006).

In 2001 she produced A Winter Talisman with Scots fiddler Johnny Cunningham, with whom she subsequently toured each winter until his death on December 15, 2003.

On December 19, 2003 Susan joined the klezmer band The Klezmatics onstage at the 92nd Street Y (New York) in a concert of songs they had composed to lyrics by Woody Guthrie. She has toured and appeared with The Klezmatics often since then, performing in Europe and across the US from Carnegie Hall to Disney Hall in LA. Together they recorded Woody Guthrie's Happy Joyous Hanukkah (2004) and Wonder Wheel (2006) which won a Grammy for Best Contemporary World Music Album.

In 2009, McKeown and Lorin Sklamberg (lead singer of the Klezmatics) released Saints & Tzadiks (World Village/Harmonia Mundi), an album combining Yiddish and Irish songs.

McKeown devised and produced Songs from the East Village, a world music album of songs from the students, parents and staff of The East Village Community School in Manhattan which was released in September 2010.

In October 2010 she released the solo album, Singing in the Dark, an exploration of creativity and madness. With lyrics from poets who were writing through the lens of depression, mania and addiction, the music was composed by McKeown, Leonard Cohen, John Dowland, Violeta Parra, and Klezmatics members, Lisa Gutkin and Frank London.