New Dates Announced for FOUR SHILLINGS SHORT At Teatro Paraguas

New dates have been announced for SAMHAIN CONCERT- music, poetry & stories to celebrate the Celtic New Year at TEATRO PARAGUAS. New shows will take place November 15 and 16 at 3205 Calle Marie, Suite A, Santa Fe, NM 87505. Call (505) 424-1601 or visit www.teatroparaguas.org for tickets.

Four Shillings Short, the husband/wife duo of Aodh Og O'Tuama from Cork, Ireland and Christy Martin from California, perform Traditional and Original music from the Celtic lands, Medieval & Renaissance Europe, India and the Americas on a fantastic array of instruments (over 30) including Hammered & Mountain Dulcimer, Mandolin, Mandola, Bouzouki, Tinwhistles, Recorders, Medieval and Renaissance Woodwinds, North Indian Sitar, Charango, Bowed Psaltery, Banjo, Bodhran, Guitar, Percussion, vocals and even a Krumhorn.

This special concert includes, poetry, songs, stories and folklore in Celebration of the Ancient Celtic New Year know as Samhain. Many of our modern day Harvest celebrations and customs are based on this festival including ghost stories, Halloween costumes, bobbing for apples, and the jack-o-lantern.
The Celtic Feast of Samhain also known as Féile na Marbh (the Feast of the Dead) marks the end of harvest, the beginning of Winter and the Celtic New Year and is traditionally celebrated at the end of October and beginning of November. Samhain is Irish-Gaelic for 'the Summer's end', and is pronounced 'sow-in'. Samhain is considered a celebration of life over death, and a time to remember those who have left the world of the living. Candles would be lit at the graves of loved ones and bonfires were lit throughout the countryside. It is believed that the borders between the world of the living and the dead is thinner on this night - also known as 'Ancestor night'. Halloween is based on the 'Feast of Samhain'.

Touring in the US & Ireland since 1997, Four Shillings Short are independent folk-artists who perform 150 concerts a year, have released 12 recordings and live as full time Troubadours traveling from town to town performing at music festivals, theatres & performing arts centers, folk societies, libraries, house concerts and schools.

Aodh Og O'Tuama grew up in a family of poets, musicians and writers. He received his degree in Music from University College Cork, Ireland and received a Fellowship from Stanford University in California in Medieval and Renaissance performance. He plays Tinwhistles, Medieval & Renaissance woodwinds, Recorders, Doumbek (from Morocco), bowed Psaltery, Spoons and sings both in English, Gaelic & French.

Christy Martin grew up in a family of musicians and dancers. From the age of 15, she studied North Indian Sitar for 10 years, 5 of them with a student of master Sitarist Ravi Shankar. She began playing the Hammered Dulcimer in her 20's and has studied with Maggie Sansone, Dan Duggan, Cliff Moses, Robin Petrie, Tony Elman and Glen Morgan. In addition she plays Mandolin, Mandola, Bouzouki, Banjo, Guitar, Bodhran (Irish frame drum), Charango, bowed Psaltery and sings in English, Irish, Spanish and Sanskrit.