CELTIC THUNDER

A show rather than a group, Celtic Thunder was conceived by Sharon Browne and written and arranged by Phil Coulter and designed as a contemporary exploration of Celtic music, which means it falls to the pop-dance side of the spec-trum more than it does to the traditional side. The show was staged, recorded, and filmed in Dublin in August of 2007 and featured five male vocal-ists, Damian McGinty (only 14 years old when the show was recorded), Keith Harkin, Paul Byrom, Ryan Kelly, and George Donaldson, rotating leads through a set of traditional and contempo-rary songs, several of them written by Coulter. A CD and DVD of the event appeared from Decca in 2008. The quintets 2009 sophomore effort, Take Me Home, was stocked with traditional Irish and Scottish ballads peppered with a handful of pop/rock covers, while 2010s Its Entertain-ment relied exclusively on commercial pop hits. Celtic Thunder returned to their roots for 2011s Heritage, a meld of new and traditional material. Paul Byrom left before the album was complete, having recorded numerous tracks for the set be-fore leaving; he was replaced by Emmet Cahill, although both men appear on the recording. Storm, a full theatrical production, arrived that same year, followed by Voyage in 2012 and the groups tenth album, Mythology, in 2013. Celtic Thunder vocalist George Donaldson died of a heart attack at his home in Glasgow, Scotland in March of 2014.

emmettEmmet is 24 years old and hails from Mull-ingar in County Westmeath in Ireland. His musical journey began with a piano lesson when he was just 5 years old. By the time he turned 7 Emmet had begun to have his voice professionally trained and he later went on to win a music scholarship for high school in Mullingar. Emmet spent the next 5 years intensively studying and playing music. At school he furthered his studies in piano, organ, violin and vocal training, but singing was always his true choice. He continued his education at the prestigious Royal Irish Academy of Music where he received a university degree in Music Performance

22-year-old Damian was born in Derry, Northern Ireland. His career began at the age of 13 when he recorded a charity CD, and his unmistakable talent and charisma quickly catapulted him into fame and success. Selected in 2007 by producer Sharon Browne and musical director Phil Coulter to join the inaugural cast of Celtic Thunder, Da-mian quickly became a fan favorite for his friend-ly charm and his deep baritone voice. In the time he was with the group, Damian performed in six specials for Public Television and completed four coast-to-coast tours of the U.S. and Canada, and Celtic Thunder sold over one million CDs and DVDs as well as over 400,000 concert tickets.

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THE BAND

Ryan comes from The Moy in Co. Tyrone in North-ern Ireland. Although he studied accountancy at Queens University, Belfast and is a qualified Chartered Accountant by trade, music and theat-er have always been Ryans true passion. He first began singing in public at the age of seven and has won many accolades and awards for his per-

formances, including SCOR 2007, a national Irish Singing Competition, and the BBCs Country Cool competition in 2003. He also released his solo debut album In Time in October 2011 to great critical acclaim and won an Irish Music Award that same year. Ryans love of musical theatre has led him to perform the lead role in the Willie Russell musical Blood Brothers and the role of Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar.

ryanKeith Harkin comes from County Derry in Northern Ireland, where he started performing for the public at the tender age of four, wowing audiences with his beautiful voice and musical talent. Now at 27, Keith has played to audiences across Europe, Australia, the USA and Canada. He has performed many times at the Tavistock Festival in the UK, and at the Glasgowbury Festival in North-ern Ireland and has composed and recorded songs for the BBC show Dha Theanga, an Irish language program on the BBC in which he played a lead role.

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Paul Byrom is often hailed as Irelands premier young tenor and with good reason. The Dublin-born tenor began voice study and training when he was just seven years old and later went on to study under the legendary Dr. Veronica Dunne,

Irelands leading lady of opera and a renowned vocal teach-er. He was a professional sing-er by his early teens and Paul recorded his first album as a boy soprano at 14. His sec-ond release, entitled VELVET, was in 2005 and it reached #2 in the Irish music charts. Paul went on to release his Christ-mas album entitled "I'll Be Home For Christmas" in 2008.

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