• Mary Black & Roisin O
• 6:00pm Seating / 8:00pm Show

ABOUT MARY BLACK

For the last quarter-century, singer Mary Black has been a dominant presence in Irish music, both at home and abroad. She has shared stages, tv shows and recording studios with some of the most revered performers of her time. She has also played a frontline role in bringing Irish music, past and present, to an increasingly appreciative and ever-growing global audience. The San Francisco Chronicle has described her as "One of the best interpretative singers around".

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At a time when less adventurous performers preferred to stick exclusively to the well-worn ballads from Ireland’s rich music heritage and the more obvious hits from contemporary writers, Mary explored the best work available from new composers and mined the rich seams they offered. That commitment to fresh material, combined with her unique interpretations of the songs she chooses, saw her release numerous albums that achieved platinum sales status and spawned countless hits.  Indeed, one of Mary’s albums - No Frontiers - spent more than a year in the Irish Top 30!

To the acclaim and awards Mary has received over the years from both the public and the critics must also be added the esteem she has generated from her fellow artists.  Indeed, many of them have recorded and performed live with her, including Emmylou Harris, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Joan Baez and Van Morrison, not to mention a host of Irish traditional musicians and singers. Along the way she has also recorded and performed with her siblings in The Black Family and with her highly successful sister Frances.

Coming from an intensely musical family, with her mother a fine singer and her father an entertaining fiddle player, Mary first came to the music public’s attention in the late ‘70s as a member of the group General Humbert with whom she recorded and toured. In 1983 she teamed up with guitarist/producer Declan Sinnott (later to become Christy Moore’s musical sidekick) and released her eponymously-named debut solo album. It reached No. 4 in the Irish Charts and is ranked among the best Irish albums of the early 1980's.  It won her the Irish Independent Arts Award for Music, the first in a staggering sequence of awards that continue to come her way.

2008 marked the 25th anniversary of Mary's first solo album, and to celebrate the momentous occasion Mary released a special compilation double album 25 Years/25 Songs. It featured a personal, hand-picked selection of gems spanning Mary's career and it still serves as a testament to the extraordinary range and quality of both her vocal prowess and her astute song selection. Mary recorded two brand new songs for the project, and the album went straight to No. 1 in the Irish charts, where it remained for a staggering five weeks, spending over seven months in the Irish top 40!

The British magazine What Hi-Fi? considers Mary Black's voice to be so pure that they have repeatedly used it for comparing the sound quality of different high fidelity systems. In an industry noted for its fickleness and its almost insatiable need for fresh novelties, Mary Black’s enduring successes have proven that her depth of talent and her love of singing transcend the generations, as well as national and musical boundaries too. She is indeed a real Irish treasure and her talent a gift from this small Ireland to a grateful world.

ABOUT ROISIN O

Rose O'Reilly, also known as Roisin O, is now successfully gigging around Dublin city. The singer songwriter has been supporting names such as The Coronas, Like Kings, Shay Cotter, Mary Black and Robert Cray. The self-taught musician, with song writing to her name since the age of sixteen has been gigging confidently since she was seventeen in some of the cities hot spots for example, Whelans, The Village, Vicar Street and The Olympia.

In 2007 she recorded her first 5 track EP entitled Oxegen, with her cousin Eoghan Scott, whilst only in 6th year. She was recently a hit guest on Balcony TV and Bandwagon TV and sang to a full tent at Mitchellstowns Indiependence festival this summer. After doing a small tour of the country with her band, hitting venues like The Spirit Store and The Stables, she is planning on recording a new EP before Christmas.

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