Aoife O'Donovan of Sometimes Why

Aoife O'Donovan"Please go and see Aoife o Donovan, not only is she in possession of a rare and beautiful thing--her voice, but it is all underlined by her intelligent choice of song and her subtle and soulful singing style. Believe me you will be hooked."  - Karan Casey

Singer Aoife O'Donovan has been dubbed the "voice of the new tradition" by Performer magazine. Merging American, Irish, klezmer and jazz styles, Aoife's angelic voice brings mature expressivity to traditional songs.

Aoife grew up in Newton, MA where she was surrounded by music from an early age. (Her first name is pronounced "EEF-uh," the Irish form of Eve.) She spent all of her summers in Ireland growing immersed in the folk music tradition and studying Irish dance. In high school, Aoife became interested in the American folk tradition through artists such as Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, and began playing guitar and singing traditional songs. In 2000, Aoife began studies at the New England Conservatory of Music with Dominique Eade, Hankus Netsky, and Rand Blake, among others, graduating in 2003.

Aoife's main musical endeavor is her work with the alternative bluegrass band Crooked Still. While at the New England Conservatory, Aoife was a classmate of bassist Corey DiMario (who performed at the Lyceum in October with Lissa Schneckenberger). Just across the river in the laboratories of MIT a young cellist named Rushad Eggleston from the Berklee College of Music met every night to jam with Greg Liszt, then a graduate student studying biology and an aspiring banjo player. A serendipitous meeting at a late-night party brought all four of these musicians together for the first time, and Crooked Still was born in the summer of that year. You can hear Aoife singing with Crooked still on the song "Look on and Cry" from the Crooked Still web site.

In addition to Crooked Still, Aoife is a member of the jazz-bluegrass super-group the Wayfaring Strangers, which Rolling Stone described as "a boundary-blurring experiment gone incredibly right." She is featured on their latest CD, "This Train."

Aoife has also performed with Seamus Egan, Darol Anger, the Boston Pops and the Utah Symphony. In addition to her shows with Sometimes Why, Aoife will be touring with banjoist Alison Brown in December, and then in January she'll be going to Glasgow with Crooked Still to perform at the Celtic Connections festival.