Date/Time:
Friday, May 12, 2017
8:00 pm - 10:30 pm
Location:
St. John’s United Church
Paul and Calvin met in 2005 on Vancouver Island.
This high energy duo perform Celtic based instrumental music and Paul’s original songs on a range of instruments including fiddle, concertina, Irish bouzuki, guitar, bodhran and musical saw.
Calvin Cairns
Calvin Cairns is a Canadian fiddler and musical entertainer. He has toured extensively, as a solo musician and with various bands in Russia, Europe, Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom, the USA, and from coast to coast to coast across Canada.
He fiddled his way from Moose Jaw to Moscow with the Canadian folk music institution Stringband, a completely Canadian band with an internationally crisscrossing concert tour schedule.
Calvin’s band, The Romaniacs, combined his Ukrainian background with other eastern European influences to create a unique style of musical ethno-fusion. This non-stop tongue in cheek polka party performed at every major folk music festival in Canada plus the Montreal Jazz Festival and the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival. They appeared with the Halifax and Thunder Bay Symphonies, recorded two albums (a third compilation was released to critical acclaim in Japan) and toured Australia.
Calvin has also performed and recorded with Stuart MacLean and The Vinyl Café Orchestra, The Bills, Connie Kaldor, Art Napoleon, Don Freed, Ferron, Spirit of the West, Bob Bossin, and even had the thrill of playing with Pete Seeger at the Orpheum Theater in Vancouver.
Calvin has been teaching fiddle in the remote First Nations communities of the North West Territories since 2005.
Paul O’Brien
Paul O’Brien is a singer songwriter and instrumentalist who immigrated to Canada in 2005. He currently tours Europe performing his original songs and teaching musical songwriting workshops in the schools.
Paul’s driving and creative rhythmic performance of celtic instrumental music can be traced back to his grandma, who was the first woman to perform on the drum kit touring Ireland in the 1940’s. Paul’s mother is a fiddler and his dad plays the guitar, so the love of music making has been an ever-present force in his family life.
Paul writes and performs his songs with a powerful and intense delivery.
Paul’s songs encompass issues that affect his day to life. These are songs from the heart. He writes songs that come out of the blue, or the mists of the past. These are the songs of mystery and wonder. His songs have been written whilst an eagle looked down from a tree, or simply looking out into the Pacific Ocean. Paul’s ever expanding repertoire includes the telling of stories about colourful local characters and west coast lore…… the songs of who we are and where we find ourselves.