Headline Guest - Circling Over Shannon

Every year, the festival brings in a headline guest to play the Ceilidh and contribute a workshop or another session during the day. We always try to book energetic and engaging performers from various parts of Canada. This year we are proud to present Circling Over Shannon. As well as their performance at the Ceilidh, members of the band will be at The Alexander Keith's Kitchen Party at O'Hanlon's on Saturday afternoon. Check out the band's MySpace site to hear some tunes, or have a look at a fall performance at O'Hanlon's on YouTube.

Circling over Shannon is driven by the two fiery fiddles of Lighthouse Penguin alumni Skye Lennox and Ryan Spracklin and fuelled by the high octane strumming of
Michael Hughes on bouzouki and guitar. This is accelerated by the frenetic freestyle drumming of Matt Bradford on bodhran.

Skye Lennox is a veteran of the Celtic music scene in Saskatoon. Skye fiddled with Siamsa, Saskatoon’s favourite Celtic band of the nineties, and was a founding member of the Lighthouse Penguins. Skye is currently the only certified Irish fiddle instructor in Western Canada and takes great pleasure in imparting her fiddle knowledge and experience to some 30 students of all ages. Michael Hughes originally hails from Glasgow, Scotland and fell in love with the Celtic music scene in Saskatoon becoming a founding member of the Lighthouse Penguins in 1999. He is a regular player at the many Irish music sessions and ceilis throughout the year, and continues to enjoy original composition with his solo project “Jellicoe Street”. A 3rd generation drummer, Matthew Bradford has been playing the bodhran for the past 18 years. Matthew’s drumming skills were mentored from day one by his grandfather and Siamsa bodhran player, Wayne Bradford. Notorious for his frenetic freestyle technique and roof raising solos, Matthew has had the privilege of playing with a host of great musicians. One career highlight includes being asked to stay and play the night away with fiddle and button accordion legends Frankie Gavin and
Sharon Shannon at a session in Galway, Ireland. Ryan Spracklin has been playing the fiddle since he was a wee tiny lad. A founding member of the Lighthouse Penguins, he is delighted to be reunited with Skye Lennox to cook up a blistering unison fiddle sound. Ryan has a passion for live entertainment of all genres. It was this zeal that led him to pursue a career as a stage technician and musician. Having lived in Edmonton and Halifax, he has had the pleasure of playing with an assortment of fine celtic players, and is delighted to be back once more in his home
town to soak in the vibrant live music scene the city and province have to offer.

Fiddler Shona Le Mottée started playing at the age of seven on the Island of Jersey, in the English Channel. At age nine she moved to Vancouver, Canada where she continued to develop her music under fiddling greats such as Alasdair Fraser, Buddy MacMaster, Bruce Molsky, Daniel Lapp, and Martin Hayes.

In September, 1995, Shona was chosen to join the internationally known Canadian Celtic-pop group, “The Paperboys”. During the 2 ½ years she was with the band, she toured extensively throughout North America playing on stages from Vancouver and San Francisco to Halifax and New York. She has performed at sold-out festivals and venues such as: The Boston Irish Festival, the Vancouver Folk Music and Celtic Festivals, the Toronto Harbourfront and Celtic Festivals, the Victoria Celtic Festival, the Owen Sound Folk Festival, the Kentucky Folk Festival, the Seattle Folklife and Bumbershoot Festivals, the Spectrum in Montreal, the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver, the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, and many more. Shona was also part of the du Maurier Concert Series, the Huron Carol Concert Series, and the MuchMusic Canadian benefit tour for AIDS.

During the summer of 1997, Shona recorded the album “Molinos” with The Paperboys. It was released on the Stony Plain/Warner Canada label and won the Canadian Juno Award in March 1998 for “The Best Roots and Traditional Album – Group” category. Shona also recorded two music videos with The Paperboys which were broadcast across the country on “CMT” and “MuchMusic”. She has made appearances on radio and T.V. shows such as: CBC radio, Terminal City (CBC TV), Muchmusic in Vancouver, Toronto, Halifax, and San Francisco, the Vicki Gabreau Show (TV), the CMT Rockin’ Country Series (TV), Entertainment Desk in Toronto (TV), Breakfast Television in Toronto and Vancouver, and numerous other radio stations in Canada and the USA.

In 1998/99, Shona performed with “Micheal Flatley’s Lord of the Dance” at the New York, NY Casino in Las Vegas and at Disney World in Orlando, Florida. More recently, Shona has performed and recorded with several local Canadian bands such as “Fear of Drinking”, “Tim Readman”, “Alpha YaYa Dialo”, “The Town Pants”, and “Mad Pudding”.

Shona is also in great demand as a fiddle teacher. She has been teaching privately for over 13 years and was the founder and director of the Vancouver Scottish Fiddle Club which ran successfully for six years. During the summers of 2002 - 2004, Shona was invited to teach at the Coast Strings Fiddle School in British Columbia and the Rocky Mountain Fiddle Camp in Denver, Colorado. At these schools she was on staff with some of the best fiddlers in the world such as: Bruce Molsky, Seamus Connelly, Richard Greene, Iain Fraser, Pierre Schryer, Andy Stein, and Sandy MacIntyre. Throughout 2006/2007, Shona will be teaching fiddle lessons in Vancouver and Victoria, BC.

In March of 2005, Shona released her debut solo album, "Destination Grouville."

Visit Shona's web site.