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Aoife O'Donovan
Bio:
Aoife is an American singer and songwriter. She is best known as the lead singer for the progressive bluegrass/string band, Crooked Still, and a member of the female folk-noir trio, Sometymes Why. Her first professional engagement was singing lead for the folk group The Wayfaring Strangers. She has performed and recorded with Ollabelle, Karan Casey and Seamus Egan, Jerry Douglas, Jim Lauderdale, Darol Anger, Sarah Jarosz, Sara Watkins, Christina Courtin, Chris Thile (Nickel Creek, Punch Brothers), Noam Pikelny (Punch Brothers), Edgar Meyer, Stuart Duncan and Yo-Yo Ma. ODonovan has also performed with the Boston Pops Orchestra and the Utah Symphony Orchestra. In 2012, she sang on most of the tracks on the album "Be Still" by the jazz group the Dave Douglas Quintet, featuring trumpeter Dave Douglas. During the summer of 2013, she toured with Garrison Keillor and his "A Prairie Home Companion Radio Romance Tour and was a guest performer on Garrisons final show as host on A Prairie Home Companion in 2016. She toured internationally with Sarah Jarosz and Sara Watkins as part of the "I"m With Her" tour.
New Project "In the Magic Hour"
In the quiet moments found between touring her first solo album and collaborating with mainstay folk and bluegrass peers, Aoife ODonovan found the inspiration to write her sophomore album In the Magic Hour out Jan. 22, 2016 on Yep Roc Records.
Flying, getting the rental car, eating all my meals alone ODonovan says. I just remember sitting with a book in Germany two winters ago, just feeling so happy that after the show I could have a Hefeweizen and read and not talk to anybody. And I think that gave me more time to edit my lyrics and really be more mindful with them.
The songwriting process for In the Magic Hour coincided with the death of ODonovans grandfather, at age 93. She remembers him as a gentle soul, in the small Irish village of Clonakilty where he lived. The lyrics on In the Magic Hour are infused with a sense of loss and mortalitys dark certainty. But the album is just as much an ode to ODonovans joyful childhood visits to Ireland. Aunts, uncles, grandparents and flocks of cousins would gather at the Clonakilty seaside to swim in the chilly ocean and sing together in the lingering Irish summer twilight. In my memory it was sunny every day, ODonovan says. Although that definitely cannot be true.
The result of ODonovans days of solitude is a 10-song album full of the singers honeyed vocals mixed with gauzy, frictionless sounds: splashing cymbals, airy harmonies, the leisurely baritone musings of an electric guitar.
ODonovan had not yet performed many of the songs live before arranging and recording them over the course of three sessions in Tucker Martines (The Decemberists, Neko Case), studio in Portland, OR. The whole recording process was really Tucker [;Martine]; and me taking these songs and building them from the ground up, ODonovan says. The result is deliberate but not over-done, the freshness of the material intact.
While In The Magic Hour rekindles the creative partnership with Grammy-nominated producer Martine, the album also highlights the fruits of ODonovans various career collaborations. Composer Gabriel Kahane, New Yorks string quartet Brooklyn Rider and musician Chris Thile all lend musical and vocal support, as well as Im With Her band members Sara Watkins and Sarah Jarosz, plus many more.
Throughout In the Magic Hour, ODonovans grandfather flits in and out like a beloved specter. His voice appears in the mournful Donal Óg, tremulous and faraway. And the transcendent Magpie, named for Irelands ubiquitous birds, was written for him.
There are flocks, but you often see just one solo bird, ODonovan says. And I really like that theyre these creatures that have the whole sky at their disposal. You can be a loner, or you can be at the front of the V.
Flight and loneliness are enduring themes throughout In the Magic Hour, which takes much of its inspiration from ODonovans itinerant lifestyle. But she finds herself reaching, again and again, for something more substantial. The songs on In the Magic Hour are like specks of dust floating in the tall arches of a cathedral, privy to the endless rituals of life and death and stirred occasionally by the flutter of pigeon wings. Graceful and light, they search, softly, for a place to rest.
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LocationBlack Bart Playhouse (View)
580 S Algiers St
Murphys, CA, CA 95222
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: Yes! |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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