About

Each year, a new roster of musicians are featured in the Best of Boxwood concert tour, with performances across Nova Scotia part of Musique Royale’s Summer Festival. This tour celebrates the energetic, traditional dance music of Maritimes Canada, Scotland, Ireland and more. Taking place annually in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, the Boxwood Festival is renowned for its inspiring, multi-generational environment of workshops and concerts centered around traditional music and early music, with experts and amateurs providing an immersive artistic experience. The Best of Boxwood tour showcases the fruits of these collaborations across Nova Scotia. This year the tour features Kevin Burke (one of Ireland’s premiere fiddlers), Bruce Molsky (the virtuoso of many instruments and powerful vocals), Chris Norman (master of the wooden flute, and founder of Boxwood Festivals),Eamon O’Leary (the much loved Irish singer songwriter), and Janelle Lucyk (a baroque singer).

About the Artists

Kevin Burke - Fiddle

Kevin is one of Ireland’s premier fiddlers. He is inextricably linked in the annals of traditional music with his role in the near-legendary Bothy Band in the 1970s. After moving to Portland in 1980, Kevin Burke and Bothy Band guitarist and singer Micháel O Domhnaill teamed up again and produced two classic albums: Promenade and Portland, which received critical acclaim. Kevin was a founding member of Patrick Street and has toured extensively with the Celtic Fiddle Festival. He was recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2002 and received a coveted National Heritage Fellowship.

Bruce Molsky - Fiddle, Guitar, Song, Banjo

Bruce transports audiences to another time and place with his authentic and personal interpretations of rarities from the Southern Appalachian songbook and other musical traditions from around the globe. Best known for his work on the fiddle, his banjo, guitar and his distinctive, powerful vocals, and combination of technical virtuosity and relaxed conversational wit makes a concert hall feel like an intimate front porch gathering. He has collaborated with Mark Knopfler, Anonymous 4, Andy Irvine & Donal Lunny, the BBC TV “Transatlantic Sessions” with Aly Bain and Jerry Douglas, and on “David Holt’s State of Music” on PBS and longtime collaborators Darol Anger, Tony Trischka and Mountain Drifters’ Allison de Groot.

Chris Norman - Flute, Pipes

Powered by his love and mastery of the simple wooden flute, Chris Norman has gained an international profile over the past three decades via his critically praised work as a performer, composer, teacher, flute-maker and builder of a musical community. Born in Halifax, NS, Chris developed an early passion for traditional Maritime, Celtic and French Canadian music. He has toured worldwide and appears on more than 40 commercial recordings, and numerous Hollywood soundtracks. He is the driving force behind Boxwood Festivals, whose annual weeklong celebrations of traditional music have taken place in Canada, The USA, Australia and New Zealand, and was presented with the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal and Doctor of Laws, honoris causa by Dalhousie University in 2015 for contributions to the arts in Canada.

Eamon O’Leary - Guitar, Banjo, Song

Eamon O’Leary is a songwriter, guitar, bouzouki and banjo player and from New York’s Lower East Side, originally from Dublin, Ireland. He has developed his songcraft, appearing live and collaborating with esteemed artists such as Sam Amidon, Beth Orton, Bonnie Prince Billy, Anais Mitchell, Anna and Elizabeth, Martin Hayes, releasing five recordings of original songs including Old Clump, All Souls, Sister in Song, Bernadette, and The Silver Sun. He has toured extensively throughout North America and Europe, performing and recording with many of Irish music’s great players. Eamon regularly tours and records with The Murphy Beds, with Jefferson Hamer, and with old friends John Doyle and Nuala Kennedy to form The Alt.

Janelle Lucyk - Song

Janelle Lucyk is a leader among an emerging generation of Canadian artists specializing in historically informed performance, taking ideas from conception to the stage. She is the artistic director of early music ensemble Ménestrel and is artistic & administrative director of Musique Royale (est. 1985), a music presenter based in Lunenburg, NS which enriches historic spaces through the sharing of world class early music, and more. She graduated with distinction from the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles (Belgium), and has a Masters in Management from Durham University (UK).

For more please visit: https://boxwood.org/canada/