Deemed “the Jimi Hendrix of the violin” (The New York Times) and “the future of Celtic fiddle” (The Washington Post), Grammy Award-winner and Emmy Award-nominee Eileen Ivers continues to push the fiddling tradition boundaries from a folk music staple to a fiercely fresh, powerfully beautiful, intensely driving world stage experience.
What’s the difference between a fiddle and a violin? Nothing, in the hands of Ivers, who shreds electric fiddle through fuzz, wah, and looping effects and is Bronx-born, yet the nine-time All-Ireland Fiddle Champion.
Ivers has performed with Sting, ‘Fiddlers 3’ with Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and Regina Carter, Patti Smith, Al Di Meola, and The Chieftains. She was the groundbreaking Musical Star of Riverdance, a founding member of Cherish the Ladies, a former member of the Hall & Oates band, a featured instrumentalist on soundtracks, including Gangs of New York and Back to Titanic, and is one of the most awarded All-Ireland Fiddle and Banjo champions ever. Ivers celebrates her 30-plus-year career as a performer, composer, producer, songwriter, band leader, educator, multi-instrumentalist, and renowned pioneer in connecting her American-Irish traditional, jazz, blues, and world roots.
Ivers’ most recent CD, Beyond the Bog Road, and its extensively researched 16-page liner notes, focuses on the influences of the Celtic tradition on Roots music (bluegrass, French-Canadian, Cajun, Appalachian, Americana) and how the music journeyed on to become a fundamental ingredient of the American Country music tradition. Irish Music Magazine called it “a triumph … a musical Magnus-Opus” and the album reached number one on the Alt-Country Roots Music Chart.
Ivers’ new, energetic, joyous, and passionate band, Universal Roots, connects the music, cultures, stories, and emotions that tie us together, celebrating the fact that we are more alike than dissimilar. Music truly is the universal language. The ensemble, with a broad array of instrumentation, features Matt Mancuso on lead vocals, guitar, trumpet, fiddle; Buddy Connolly on button accordion, whistles, piano, vocals; Lindsey Horner on upright and electric bass, baritone sax, vocals; Dave Barckow on lead vocals, percussion, guitar; and Ivers on fiddle, mandolin, banjo, bodhran, and live looping.