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Arts & Entertainment

Music at Trinity presents The Two Tap Trio

Celtic music to warm up the winter

Music at Trinity’s 2011-2012 season continues with The Two Tap Trio, a favorite Celtic band featuring Norah Rendell, Brian Miller and Nathan Gouley on Sunday February 26th.

Formed in 2007 and based in the Twin Cities, the Two Tap Trio mixes driving fiddle and flute duets with Rendell’s acclaimed voice, underpinned by intricate guitar and bouzouki accompaniment. A high caliber stage act, the trio performs at festivals and concert halls throughout the Midwest and puts the spring in the step of Irish dancers back home in Saint Paul.

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Rock and Reel Magazine calls Norah Rendell “a fabulous lead vocalist”.  Her work with guitarist Brian Miller earned her a nomination for 2008 Traditional Singer of the Year from the Canadian Folk Music Awards.  Norah is also a master flute and whistle player who plays those instruments “with a degree of style and sensitivity envied by many” says Tim Carroll of FolkWords.  She hails from Vancouver, BC and has performed throughout western Canada and on CBC radio.  She was a two-time recipient of the prestigious Canada Council for Performing Arts grant which she used to study traditional flute and singing in Ireland; earning a masters in Irish traditional music from the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance.  She is the lead singer and flute player in the UK/Ireland-based band The Outside Track with whom she tours on “both sides of the pond”.

“The backing of [Brian] Miller on guitar flexes not just muscle but a fully complementary style” writes esteemed Irish music critic Earle Hitchner.  Also an accomplished singer, his trademark guitar accompaniment is the backbone of nationally touring Irish music group Bua, a band comprised of some of the finest young Irish musicians in the US.  Brian has long been a highly visible character in the Twin Cities Irish music scene, while often sneaking away to his other adopted home of Cork, Ireland. He has performed throughout the US and in Canada and Ireland. In Ireland he has been featured on TG4, RTE television and RTE radio. The Irish Times calls his guitar accompaniment “superb”.

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Fiddler Nathan Gourley hails from Madison, Wisconsin, where he grew up in a musical family that often traveled to folk and fiddle festivals across the country. Now based in the Twin Cities, Nathan puts his passion for Irish music into practice as a member of The Máirtín de Cógáin Project, The Doon Ceili Band, and O’Rourke’s Feast. He can also be found at the MSP airport en route to many yearly excursions to Ireland, New York, Chicago and other hotbeds of traditional Irish music.  His high energy fiddle playing brings both sweetness and drive to the Two Tap Trio’s sound.

The performance will be held on Sunday, February 26th at 4pm at Trinity Episcopal Church in Excelsior, MN. All Music at Trinity concerts are free and open to the public. Donations support the continued development of the Music at Trinity series.

Trinity is located at 322 Second Street in Excelsior MN. For more information, contact Nathalie Wilson at (612) 202-7421.

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