Biography
Karan Casey's membership in the Irish folk ensemble Solas placed her among the style's leading figures, alongside other notable female singer-songwriters such as Maire Brennan of Clannad, Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh from Altan, Sharon Shannon, and Karen Matheson of Capercaillie. Following her departure from Solas in 1999, she built a thriving solo path that yielded a series of well-regarded recordings including Distant Shore (2003), Ships in the Forest (2008), and Hieroglyphs That Tell the Tale (2018), works that sit at the meeting point between modern and traditional folk idioms.
Casey spent her early years singing with relatives in the southeastern Irish village of Ballyduff Lower in County Waterford. During childhood she performed in the local church choir, yet shifted focus to piano upon reaching young adulthood. While pursuing studies in voice and piano at University College Dublin and subsequently at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in the late 1980s, she performed Ella Fitzgerald standards in a jazz duo at a neighborhood pub and launched her own Irish ensemble named Dorothy. She has cited jazz as the influence that enabled her to fully grasp and interpret traditional Irish material, though she recognized that Dublin offered limited scope for deeper pursuit of that direction.
In 1993 Casey relocated to New York, where she resumed formal training as a jazz major at Long Island University in Brooklyn. Around the same period she rekindled her interest in Irish traditional music and began performing regularly in Manhattan bars. This renewed engagement led her to a short stint with the New York-based group Atlantic Bridge, yet by the close of 1994 she had joined Seamus Egan, John Doyle, John Williams, and Winifred Horan to establish Solas. The band swiftly garnered critical praise, releasing three albums on Shanachie while touring across America, Europe, and Japan in the company of artists such as Bela Fleck, the Chieftains, Iris DeMent, and Donal Lunny.
Amid these activities Casey still managed to complete her debut solo album, Songlines, which surfaced in 1997. She exited Solas two years afterward and delivered her second solo release, Winds Begin to Sing, in 2001. Distant Shore followed in 2003, succeeded by Chasing the Sun in 2005, the latter containing material she had learned from her mother and maternal grandmother. After extensive performances throughout North America and Europe, along with repeated appearances on Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion, she rejoined Solas briefly for the band's 2006 album Reunion. In 2008 she issued her fifth solo effort, Ships in the Forest, on the Crow Valley Music label she founded with her husband, Irish concertina player Niall Vallely. The well-received Exiles Return appeared in 2010, reuniting her with Solas colleague John Doyle, while 2014's introspective Two More Hours presented an entire collection of her own compositions. Hieroglyphs That Tell the Tale arrived in 2018 and featured contributions from Karen Matheson, Niamh Dunne, Pauline Scanlon, Maura O'Connell, and Aoife O Donovan. In 2022 Casey partnered with composer Harry Escott on a recording of the Irish ballad "Grace" for the British drama-romance film Ali & Ava.
Casey spent her early years singing with relatives in the southeastern Irish village of Ballyduff Lower in County Waterford. During childhood she performed in the local church choir, yet shifted focus to piano upon reaching young adulthood. While pursuing studies in voice and piano at University College Dublin and subsequently at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in the late 1980s, she performed Ella Fitzgerald standards in a jazz duo at a neighborhood pub and launched her own Irish ensemble named Dorothy. She has cited jazz as the influence that enabled her to fully grasp and interpret traditional Irish material, though she recognized that Dublin offered limited scope for deeper pursuit of that direction.
In 1993 Casey relocated to New York, where she resumed formal training as a jazz major at Long Island University in Brooklyn. Around the same period she rekindled her interest in Irish traditional music and began performing regularly in Manhattan bars. This renewed engagement led her to a short stint with the New York-based group Atlantic Bridge, yet by the close of 1994 she had joined Seamus Egan, John Doyle, John Williams, and Winifred Horan to establish Solas. The band swiftly garnered critical praise, releasing three albums on Shanachie while touring across America, Europe, and Japan in the company of artists such as Bela Fleck, the Chieftains, Iris DeMent, and Donal Lunny.
Amid these activities Casey still managed to complete her debut solo album, Songlines, which surfaced in 1997. She exited Solas two years afterward and delivered her second solo release, Winds Begin to Sing, in 2001. Distant Shore followed in 2003, succeeded by Chasing the Sun in 2005, the latter containing material she had learned from her mother and maternal grandmother. After extensive performances throughout North America and Europe, along with repeated appearances on Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion, she rejoined Solas briefly for the band's 2006 album Reunion. In 2008 she issued her fifth solo effort, Ships in the Forest, on the Crow Valley Music label she founded with her husband, Irish concertina player Niall Vallely. The well-received Exiles Return appeared in 2010, reuniting her with Solas colleague John Doyle, while 2014's introspective Two More Hours presented an entire collection of her own compositions. Hieroglyphs That Tell the Tale arrived in 2018 and featured contributions from Karen Matheson, Niamh Dunne, Pauline Scanlon, Maura O'Connell, and Aoife O Donovan. In 2022 Casey partnered with composer Harry Escott on a recording of the Irish ballad "Grace" for the British drama-romance film Ali & Ava.
Albums
Singles
