Artists
who's who and who's doing what?Damien O'Kane
- country:Ireland
- style(s):Folk
- label:Fellside Recordings
- type:Band, Solist
- gender:male
- instrumentation:instrumental, vocal
- artist submitted by:
Damien O'Kane leads the pack of young performers playing and singing Irish traditional music in Britain. He is in demand as a guest musician and has played with some of the biggest names of the genre. He has received awards for his musicianship and received a BBC Radio 2 Folk Award nomination for his recordings as a duo with Shona Kipling. In 2008 he begins work on his first solo album to be released on Fellside Recordings.
Damien, 29, hails from Coleraine in Co. Derry, Northern Ireland and has been living in Newcastle Upon Tyne since setting up residence in 2001 to become a student on Newcastle University's Folk and Traditional Music Degree course. He comes from a talented family where he was introduced to Irish traditional music at an early age. By the time he was eight he was turning heads with his whistle playing and became Ulster champion when he was ten. It was at the Ulster Fleadh in Ballyshannon, 1988, when Damien was first taken by the tenor banjo having met two fantastic players and future friends, Marinie Toman and Glen Creaney (RIP). Damien got his first banjo that Christmas and has been self taught until he joined the folk degree in 2001. A few years later Damien also taught himself guitar. He went on to reach three All-Ireland tenor banjo finals and began gigging and touring Europe with his family band in Iceland, Sweden, Switzerland and Austria.
Damien's career was to take a turn when he moved to England. After meeting piano accordionist, Shona Kipling in Sweden 2002, when they both attended Falun Ethno, a youth summer school run in parallel with Falun Folk Festival, they began playing together as a duo. In 2003 they recorded their first album 'Pure Chance'. This led to appearances at major folk festivals, including Cambridge Folk Festival, and rave reviews for the album from sources such as fROOTS, The Daily Telegraph and Living Tradition Magazine. '...ease and professionalism that belies the young age of the artistes '...an album to delight any lover of instrumental music.' Irish Music Magazine
However, Shona received horrific news in Spring 2004 that her father and the duo's manager at the time, Dr David Kipling, had been diagnosed with lung cancer. David passed away in February 2005 and is dearly missed. Shona spent every minute with her father up until that moment. The duo began gigging again late 2005 and have just finished recording their second album 'Box On' in October 2006.
When not gigging, Damien is a very keen teacher. He has led many workshops for all ages at various folk festivals and events and is a key tutor on the Tender Roots Project in Yorkshire, which focuses on the development of young folk musicians as soloists and in ensemble situations. As well as this, Damien works for Folkworks (an organisation which strives to promote traditional music in the north-east of England) at The Sage Gateshead as a tutor on Caedmon Folk teaching tenor banjo and mandolin and is Assistant Director to Kathryn Tickell of Folkestra North, a youth folk ensemble consisting of the cream of young talent in the north-east of England.
Damien's musical career has earned him credit as a creative and exciting player and as an excellent teacher of folk and traditional music. His banjo playing has given him a reputation as one of the finest Irish players on the scene today and Steve Noone from Eagle Music says, 'his guitar playing is good too' In 2005, Damien appeared on Julian Sutton's (virtuoso box player from The Kathryn Tickell Band) album 'melodeon crimes' as well as one of his compositions being recorded by Flook on their new album Haven. He is a much sought after session musician with other bands and musicians such as bellowhead, Flook, Brian Finnegan, Rachel Unthank & The Winterset and others.
In 2008 Damien will start work on his first solo project which will initially involve touring as a trio led by Damien and performing his own take on the tradition. This will culminate in a solo album slated for release on Fellside Records to be followed by touring of a larger band line up to include Cormac Byrne (Seth Lakeman band), Brian Finnegan (Flook), Dave Kosky, Aaron Jones (Old Blind Dogs) and Shona Kipling.
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