traditional

Sharon Shannon is an Irish musician from the village of Ruan in County Clare. She is best known for her work with the button accordion and her violin fiddle technique, but has also played the tin whistle. Sharon Shannon is going on tour with the Magners Irish Sessions. A series of gigs celebrating the Irish tradition of spontaneous music. Each night in a different UK city, Irish legends Sharon Shannon, Mundy and Damien Dempsey will take to the stage with a selection of their closest friends and fire the place up for a classic Irish session.

The fifth generation of her family on the same farm on the outskirts of Inverness, Sarah-Jane Summers comes from a background of fiddle players and makers and was brought up steeped in the local tradition. Taught by the late, great Donald Riddell, she has a deep understanding of the old Highland fiddle style. Equally at home on the Norwegian hardanger fiddle, her fresh, unique, lyrical sound has been described as ´lush Highland fiddle music with a Nordic twist´ (Cromarty Old Brewery Arts Centre).

Maeve Mackinnon is tipped as one of Scotland's leading young folk singers. An Honours graduate of the RSAMD's Scottish Music degree, her singing really started to come into its own prior to finalising for the BBC Radio Scotland "Young Traditional Musician 2005" award. Born into a political family, Maeve spent most of her infancy learning to walk and talk on peace marches in the 1980s, and remembers Dick Gaughan as being the first live singer she ever heard, and a major musical influence.