They’re a band beyond description / Like Jehovah’s favorite choir / People joining hand in hand / While the music plays the band / Lord they’re setting us on fire.
The Grateful Dead, “The Music Never Stopped”
Sue Richards and Robin Bullock
A major new duo of two award-winning American masters of traditional Celtic music, Sue Richards and Robin Bullock blend the ancient and magical tones of the Celtic harp with the powerful resonance of the steel-string guitar, cittern and mandolin, drawing on Irish, Scottish, Welsh and Breton traditions to create something truly unique: beautiful and timeless, yet fresh and current.
Their individual achievements speak for themselves, with (among many other accomplishments) Sue being a four-time National Scottish Harp Champion and Robin being a longtime touring sideman with Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award winner Tom Paxton.
Sue and Robin have been friends and colleagues for decades, having both recorded WAMMIE Award-winning solo albums for the Maryland-based Maggie’s Music label and collaborated on many other projects over the years; now both transplants to the western North Carolina mountains, they’re delighted to be joining forces in a long-overdue chamber-Celtic duo. The magic of their combined artistic excellence and mastery of Celtic traditions is captured on their brilliant duo debut CD Highland Ramble.
SUE RICHARDS, four-time National Scottish Harp Champion, has performed numerous times for the Embassy of Ireland in Washington DC, as well as for President Bill Clinton (twice!) and Queen Elizabeth II. She has served as president and distinguished judge for the Scottish Harp Society of America (SHSA) and founded the Washington DC Folk Harp Society. She has appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, sat in with The Chieftains, toured Norway and Scotland with the Harpa ensemble, and can be heard on dozens of award-winning recordings. Sue is a popular instructor at workshops around the country and has written several books of arrangements and original tunes. In addition to her solo work, Sue is a founding member of the Grammy-nominated Ensemble Galilei.
ROBIN BULLOCK has been hailed as a “Celtic guitar god” by Baltimore City Paper, “one of the best folk instrumentalists in the business” by Sing Out! Magazine and one of the 100 Greatest Acoustic Guitarists by DigitalDreamDoor.com. His honors include the Association for Independent Music’s prestigious INDIE Award (with the world-folk trio Helicon), Player’s Choice and Album of the Year Awards from Acoustic Guitar Magazine, and the Swannanoa Gathering’s Master Music Maker Award. Robin has played hundreds of concerts as touring sideman with Grammy Award-winning folk legend Tom Paxton, and was the sole support musician on four of Tom’s “Together at Last” tours with fellow Grammy winner Janis Ian. Writing about Robin in The NPR Curious Listener’s Guide to Celtic Music, Thistle and Shamrock host Fiona Ritchie says “Bullock’s music accents the connections between Celtic and American traditional and acoustic music. That he is able to do so by playing almost any stringed instrument to perfection is his specialty.”
With the release of their duo CD Highland Ramble joining their many critically-acclaimed solo albums, Sue and Robin prove that their individual talents together create a world-class combination, carrying Celtic tradition into new and transformative realms.
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