Inside the Banjoverse – Details, episodes & analysis

Musician, educator, CEO of Athenry Music School with over 500 students and 42 faculty. Katherine is a force of nature, a deeply present and committed educator and music teacher, and a huge inspiration for anyone involved in music education Join me on Patreon for instant access to over 200 banjo tutor videos, graduated lesson paths, tune transcriptions, Discord, Zoom hangs, and more: http://www.patreon.com/endascahillbanjo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support the podcast and join the community! http://www.patreon.com/endascahillbanjo Brenna McMillan is a banjo player and singer from Winchester, KY. Growing up, Brenna sang harmony parts in bluegrass bands, children's choirs, church choirs, and family gatherings. She began to play the banjo when she was nine. Throughout highschool, she dabbled in various genres of music, performing anything from R&B hits to gospel numbers. Through adoption, the family changed dramatically in size and lifestyle when she was eleven, and at this time her love for the rhythm of a banjo roll developed from researching the banjo in West Africa and listening to Liberian drumming. In college, she joined Theo in the college bluegrass band, an experience that solidified a latent love for playing bluegrass music. Brenna toured with the Berea College Bluegrass Ensemble in the United States and Europe, and was the recipient of the Red Foley Memorial Music Award in 2018. She completed her Bachelor's Degree in Chemistry and then moved to Nashville in May of 2018. For more on Brenna check out her Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brennamacmillanofficial/?hl=en​ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

BANJO PLAYER Ned Luberecki was named Banjo Player of the Year in 2018 by the International Bluegrass Music Association. Ned is the banjo player for The Becky Buller Band and also tours with Stephen Mougin (of the Sam Bush Band) as Nedski & Mojo. Ned was formerly the banjoist for Chris Jones and the Night Drivers, The Rarely Herd, Larry Cordle & Lonesome Standard Time, The Gary Ferguson Band, Radio Flyer and Paul Adkins and the Borderline Band.  BANJO TEACHER Ned teaches private banjo lessons in Nashville and now over the internet via web-cam! Check out the "Lessons" tab above for more info. Ned is a popular banjo instructor at music camps across the country and around the world, having taught at: Sore Fingers Summer School (UK), Nashcamp (TN), Munich Banjo Camp (DE), Camp Bluegrass (TX), B.C. Bluegrass Workshop (CA), Midwest Banjo Camp (MI) and many more. Click on the "Shows" link above to see Ned's schedule.  RADIO PERSONALITY Ned is also an on-air personality on Sirius XM Satellite Radio’s Bluegrass Junction (channel 62). Tune in Sunday Afternoons from 2:00 - 6:00pm (eastern) for More Banjo Sunday. Ned brings his banjo to the SiriusXM Channel 61 studios and plays live banjo tunes during the show! Stay tuned for the Sunday Banjo Lesson every Sunday at 3:00pm (eastern) when all the breaks in the hour are devoted to how to play the banjo.Ned also hosts the Newgrass/Progressive Bluegrass show Derailed, Saturday nights 7:00 - 9:00pm eastern. www.nedski.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A member of the renowned musical Fahy family, Máirín was the featured soloist with Riverdance for many years and has also guested with the multi-Grammy Award winning group The Chieftains on their many overseas tours. She has performed for millions of people worldwide. Máirín’s fiddle playing has been described as “amazing and unique”, while Empire Magazine tags her “the girl on the white-hot fiddle”. Máirín performed with The Chieftains and Art Garfunkel in Carnegie Hall and recorded with Dolores O’Riordan of The Cranberries. She has played for royalty and dignitaries, including Prince Rainier and the Royal Family in Monaco, and Princess Diana at the Royal Albert Hall. Máirín features in the Harrison Ford/Brad Pitt movie ‘Devil’s Own’. https://tradontheprom.com Support this podcast: www.patreon.com/endascahillbanjo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Roscommon born Cathy Jordan has been a professional singer with traditional group Dervish for nearly 30 years. She is a self-taught guitar, bouzouki, bodhrán and bones player. She has led Dervish as front woman through thousands of concerts in hundreds of cities in nearly 40 countries and has 16 albums under her belt. Among the most notable performances were The Great Wall of China and the biggest rock music festival in the world - Rock in Rio to over 250,000 people.  As a songwriter, she has written songs with internationally renowned Brendan Graham, best known for the most successful song of the twentieth century, You Raise Me Up. More recently she has been a teacher providing vocal training and exercises to students in Ireland and abroad, as well as expanding her students traditional song repertoire.  In 2014, she took up the role of presenter of Fleadh TV with TG4. Cathy has been an ambassador for Irish culture and music for over a quarter of a century, and has a deep understanding of traditional Irish songs and singing and has collected hundreds of songs which otherwise may have been forgotten. Cathy and Dervish have been invited to accompany Presidents and Taoisigh of Ireland as cultural ambassadors to China, Latvia and Lithuania.  Dervish’s most recent album, The Great Irish Songbook, was released in 2019 on Rounder records and features duets with Vince Gill, Steve Earle, Imelda May, David Gray and more. Over the years Cathy has picked up many awards for her contribution to traditional Irish music including BBC Lifetime Achievement Award 2019, Sligo Cultural Ambassador 2018, Annie McNulty Award 2014 and The Freedom of The City of Sligo in 2010. Cathy has a deep understanding of the Irish tradition and is regarded as one of the finest traditional singers in Ireland today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

London’s Mick O’Connor, All Ireland winner on the tenor banjo in 1971, has been playing since 1967 and is a veteran of the great days of the London Irish music scene of the 1960s, 70s and 80s. In 2013, he was honoured by Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, which bestowed its Bardic Award on him for his “exceptional contribution to the promotion of Ireland’s cultural traditions”. He's one of the true gentlemen of Irish music, a fantastic music historian and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Irish musicians worldwide over 50 years of playing and touring. A master story teller with a wicked sense of wit and humour, you're going to love this episode! https://www.wraggletaggle.com/ 🥇 Support my this podcast through my Patreon Page and access tons of exclusive banjo goodies, tune transcriptions, Discord, Zoom hangs, and more: http://www.patreon.com/endascahillbanjo Shackleton Music Radio Documentary https://www.rte.ie/culture/2022/1202/1339018-lyric-feature-shackleton-his-men-and-the-power-of-music/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brian Finnegan began playing whistle at age 8 and flute at age 10 as a student of the Armagh Pipers Club. He went on to international fame with his outstanding work with supergroup Flook, and subsequently the band KAN. https://flook.co.uk/about-me/ Brian has recently released a solo album Hunger of the Skin https://brianfinnegan.bandcamp.com/album/hunger-of-the-skin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Become a patron of this podcast. Visit www.patreon.com/endascahillbanjo David Benedict is Grammy-nominated mandolinist who is quickly becoming one of the leading figures and content creators in the mandolin world today. After graduating with a mandolin music performance degree and spending a 3-year stint in Nashville touring and recording with acclaimed bass player Missy Raines, David moved to Boston to join the bluegrass band Mile Twelve. The group quickly gained traction, receiving the 2017 International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Band Momentum Award which launched the band into extensive tours around the US, Canada, England, France, Belgium, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and beyond. Mile Twelve went on to record 3 studio albums as well as win the 2020 IBMA New Artist of the Year Award before David stepped down from the band to pursue other projects. Now, David is active as ever in the mandolin community through his solo efforts. His most recent record produced by Grammy-Nominated mandolinist Matt Flinner, The Golden Angle presents an original body of instrumental string band music. This new album, recorded four years after David’s last solo release Into the True Country, displays a new level of musical maturity and individuality. With an emphasis on virtuosic instrumental interplay and memorable melodies, the record weaves a complex yet compelling soundscape, featuring collaborations with a host of celebrated and award-winning bluegrass musicians such as David Grier (guitar), Mike Barnett (fiddle), Missy Raines (bass), Ross Martin (guitar), Stuart Duncan (fiddle), and Wes Corbett (banjo). David’s compositions, arrangements and playing style on The Golden Angle demonstrate his ability to integrate seamlessly with the high-caliber company he keeps and confirms his place among notable emerging acoustic musicians. Following the success of this record, David received the 2018 IBMA Momentum Award for Instrumentalist of the Year, and in 2019 he was nominated for a Grammy as part of Missy Raines album Royal Traveler. But beyond these accolades, David might be even be more well known for his YouTube channel which features the popular, long-running weekly series Mandolin Mondays featured on the Mandolin Cafe, as well as David’s prolific in depth mandolin lessons. The channel is currently pushing 2 million views and growing. David’s online instruction and transcription work is held in high esteem through his Patreon page as well. Now David lives in Travelers Rest, SC, where he teaches full-time and performs regularly with his wife Tabitha in their new Transatlantic Folk project The Foreign Landers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To support the podcast please visit www.patreon.com/endascahillbanjo Around age 30, young Tom Nechville was contemplating his place in the world, and decided to combine his main interest, playing the banjo, with his work experience of manufacturing, design and engineering. The result of his self study lead to the two words, “Banjo Designer”. Equipped with the knowledge of his fate, but not yet knowing how he was going to drastically modify his favorite instrument, he confided in a friend who suggested perhaps a banjo that employed a head that screwed on like a jar lid. This food for thought triggered a light bulb moment the next day, when Tom realized that you can’t really screw on a banjo head, but you can screw the banjo tone pot into the “lid” of the jar! The Heli-Mount concept was born. By firmly but adjustably fixing the neck to a hardware frame, any sort of banjo pot could be inserted from the back of the instrument and tightened with a single threaded flange, yielding perfect head tension. The Heli-Mount frame, (meaning Helical Thread Mounting system) allows for easy, quick and simple adjustments, and offers the most versatility of any banjo. It has been the staple of our product line for over 30 years. The sound of a perfectly tensioned banjo head is remarkable: rich, deep, and sweet. The time spent changing the head transformed from an all afternoon event to a two minute spin.  Since that time in the late 1980's, he has made many other improvements to the banjo. These include an adjustable and removable neck connection that negates the need for coordinator rods. Also a compensated bridge, wooden armrest and radiused fingerboard. These are modern conveniences not traditionally found on the instrument. The result is cleaner sound and easy adjustment. Go check them out www.nechville.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

🥇 Support the Podcast: http://www.patreon.com/endascahillbanjo What are my Top Ten All Time favourite banjo tracks? Jeez that's a big ask. And I'll probably pick a different ten every time the question comes up! So here's a good stab at it. What do you think? Gerry O'Connor - Funk The Cajun Blues Angelina Carberry Dermot Crogan's Jig / Hardiman's Fancy Seamus Egan - The Czar of Munster Solas - The Stride Set featuring Bela Fleck Damien O'Kane & Ron Block - Brian Boru's March At The Racket - The Darling Girl from Clare Four Men and a Dog - Easy Club Reel Cathal Hayden - The Blooming Meadows & The Connacht Man's Rambles The East Pointers - Tanglewood Gerry O'Connor - No Place Like Home Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices