Solas brings Irish music to Butte, Bozeman, Whitefish and Hamilton

Published: November 9, 2009

Solas, trumpeted by the Boston Herald as “the first truly great Irish band to arise from America,” visits four Montana towns in November. Since its formation in 1996, Solas has been proclaimed as the most popular, influential, and exciting Celtic band to emerge from the United States.

The internationally acclaimed supergroup has since captured the hearts and ears of fans around the globe with its blend of Celtic traditional, folk and country melodies, bluesy, sometimes jazz-inspired improvisations, and global rhythms.

The Solas sound today is anchored by founders Seamus Egan, who plays flute, tenor banjo, mandolin, whistle, guitar and bodhran, and fiddler Winifred Horan. They are two of the most respected – and imitated – musicians in acoustic music. Mick McAuley from Kilkenny plays accordion and concertina; and Eamon McElholm from Tyrone plays guitar and keyboards.

Although Solas can play undiluted traditional Irish music as well as anyone alive or departed, they are always varying the mix of fire-tested tradition and contemporary sensibility with an ease and naturalness. The result, writes the Philadelphia Inquirer, is “mind-blowing Irish folk music, maybe the world’s best.”

The band appears in:

Butte: 8 p.m. Nov. 11 at the Mother Lode Theatre (723-3602)

Bozeman: 8 p.m. Nov. 12 at the Ellen Theatre (585-5885 or theellentheatre.com)

Whitefish: 7:30 p.m. Nov. 13 at the O’Shaughnessy Center (862-5371 or www.whitefishtheatreco.org)

Hamilton: 8 p.m. Nov. 14 at the Hamilton Performing Arts Center (363-7946 ext. 111 or www.bitterrootperformingarts.org)