Bio:
Caroline was, from a young age, exposed to the richness of West Limerick and Sliabh Luachra traditional music, an influence which has become the cornerstone of her uniquely vibrant, passionate and emotive style of concertina playing. Now having toured extensively throughout Europe, Canada and America, performing at festivals such as Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, Goderich Celtic Roots Festival, Celtic Colours and Le Bono Winter School in both solo and ensemble capacities, Caroline is truly a world musician.
At the age of seven, Caroline began taking tin whistle lessons at her local Comhaltas branch, and soon afterwards progressed on to concertina. Under the guidance of her teacher, Noel Hill, she developed proficiency in her art, and by fifteen, was performing both nationally and internationally. In 2006, Caroline was awarded the prestigious Lán Mara award, in recognition of outstanding achievement in national music examinations. In 2008 Caroline began studying at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, where she received a BA in Irish Music and Dance with first class honours after graduating in 2011.
In addition to her TTCT diploma in Irish traditional music teaching, Caroline also completed a Professional Diploma in Music Education in 2012. Her versed approach to tutelage is not only a testament to her musical expertise, but demonstrates the patience and empathy of experience. She is a regular performer and tutor at Irish, roots and folk music festivals all over the world, and teaches and performs regularly around the South West of Ireland. Caroline currently lives in Dingle, Co. Kerry, where she performs and teaches regularly.
The Recôncavo is an almost invisible center-of-gravity. Circumscribing the Bay of All Saints, this region was landing for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history. Not unrelated, it is also birthplace of some of the most physically & spiritually uplifting music ever made. —Sparrow
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay. They paid.
MATRIX MUSICAL
The Matrix was built below among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced. (that's me left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) ... The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).