Whelan Master Sessions #1: Kevin Crawford and Haley Richardson

This is the first in a series of online master sessions -- an opportunity to listen, play and chat live on Zoom with some of the best musicians in the business. This week’s guests are:

Kevin Crawford, who you might best recognize as a member of the globe-trotting, cutting-edge traditional band Lúnasa, which some have described as “the Bothy Band of the 21st century.” Kevin was also a founding member of Moving Cloud and is a sought-after member of numerous supergroups, including The Teetotallers with Martin Hayes and John Doyle. Learn more about Kevin at lunasa.ie.

Haley Richardson, fiddler for the 25th anniversary world tour of the Grammy Award-winning production, Riverdance. Haley is a true virtuoso of the highly ornamented Sligo fiddling style; she was already playing with many of the biggest names in Irish music before she was old enough to drive, and continues to blaze a bright trail of musical energy and dynamism. Learn more about Haley at haleyrichardsonmusic.com.

Please keep reading for details of how the master sessions work:

We all know that because of the pandemic, there are very few opportunities to play and interact with touring professional musicians. We look forward to playing live again soon but for now, we’re bringing the magic straight to your living room via Zoom.

Listeners and players of all levels, from anywhere in the world, are welcome to join in. There is a $20 requested donation for attending the session.

Each session does need a minimum of 30 participants to ensure that the musicians are adequately compensated, so please don’t wait until the last minute to book a seat and support your favorite artists. If an event is canceled due to inadequate bookings, all donations will be refunded.

To save your seat in the session, please proceed to either paypal.me/buttonboxman or Venmo @john-whelan-37 and make your donation. Be sure to include a note about which master session(s) you want to attend. The Zoom link will be sent out to all donors the day before the session.

To get on John’s email list and hear about upcoming master sessions, his free “Taking Time” slow sessions and other events, send him an email at whelanbx1@me.com with “mailing list” in the subject line.

Questions? Suggestions? Feedback? Please email John at whelanbx1@me.com, or comment here and Lisa, behind-the-scenes helper extraordinaire, will try to catch it and respond ASAP.

Thank you for supporting these great artists!

P.S. This is my first time posting an event here, so hopefully the time displays correctly for every time zone. The session will began at 2pm Pacific Time, 5pm Eastern time, 10pm Irish time.