Biography
Irish singer-songwriter Karan Casey has been blazing a trail for over 30 years. A lover of ballads, love songs and searing versions of social justice songs, fond of a good yarn, she has toured the world making deep connections with her audience connecting via Ireland’s past but crucially repositioning women and songs in a universal and a modern setting. Karan has been striking out lately to explore new areas of performance on the piano and with spoken word and theatre. She has released eleven albums as well as contributing to numerous other artists’ projects – appearing on more than 80 albums so far - and has toured extensively throughout North America, Europe and Japan, performing with her own band as well as collaborating with such diverse musicians as Maura O’Connell, James Taylor, Bela Fleck, Boston Pops Orchestra, Kate Ellis, Niall Vallely, Pauline Scanlon, The Chieftains, The Dubliners, Peggy Seeger, Karen Matheson, Mick Flannery, Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, Tim O’Brien and Solas. In 2018 Karan helped found FairPlé which is an organization aimed at achieving fairness and gender balance for female performers in Irish traditional and folk musics. Karan tours with her band Niamh Dunne, Sean Óg Graham and Niall Vallely. Hieroglyphs That Tell the Tale produced by Donald Shaw, was released on the Vertical Records Label and her song “Down in the Glen” was nominated for Best Original Folk Song at the RTE Folk Awards in 2019. She achieved a PhD in music at the University of Limerick in 2019. Karan first theatre show I Walked into My Head directed by Sophie Motley was premiered at the Kilkenny Arts Festival 2021. 2022 saw Karan collaborate with composer Harry Escott on a version of the Irish ballad "Grace" for the film “Ali & Ava”. Karan’s new album “Nine Apples of Gold” was released to great critical acclaim in February 2023. It has received extensive radio play on both sides of the Atlantic reaching No 1 on the US Folk radio charts for the month of March. Karan’s new stage show about women in the Irish revolutionary period The Women We Will Rise was premiered at the Everyman Theatre in Cork in September 2023.
Press Quotes
| "Karan Casey’s latest album is revelatory. She’s always been a singer of songs that tell a story and show their muscle…. This is a strikingly three-dimensional work that stands the test of intensive and repeated listening with ease. A vivid and dazzling snapshot of Casey invincible, at the height of her powers.” IRISH TIMES |
| "The most soulful singer to emerge in Irish traditional music in the past decade." THE GLASGOW HERALD |
| "Karan Casey's latest solo venture is a thing of rare beauty." SING OUT |
| "...the Irish equivalent of Emmylou Harris." WASHINGTON POST |
| "Casey's voice is among the loveliest in folk music and she's a wonderful interpreter of both contemporary and traditional material." BOSTON GLOBE |
| "Setting her clear voice in arrangements that mix traditional and modern instruments, she maintains the taut, quivering ornamentation of old ballad style, singing tales of love, war and murder with a gentle gravity." NEW YORK TIMES |
| "Casey has the unique ability to make every song sound true and impassioned." GLOBAL RHYTHM |
| "Vocalist of the rarest quality..." HOT PRESS |
| "If ever any doubt existed about who's the best Irish traditional woman singer today, "Exiles Return" sweeps aside all pretenders. As gloriously evident on this new CD, Karan Casey has no vocal peer." IRISH ECHO |