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'Watch out Sharon Shannon, here comes the exceedingly good Miss Kipling.' - Yorkshire Evening Press

Shona is 20 and lives in fenham, Newcastle having grown up on a farm in Hawthorn Co.Durham. Shona began playing accordion aged 11 as physiotherapy following a badly broken arm, and rapidly started winning competitions run by Comhaltas, becoming UK champion twice, and playing in three all-Ireland finals. In 2002 Shona was a finalist in the BBC radio 2 Young Folk Award competition. In 2003 she was guest accordionist with the Northern Sinfonia in their production of the "Threepenny opera" and in 2004, Shona was the only female and only traditional musician out of 2000 applicants to be awarded one of the first five BBC Fame Academy Bursaries, to enable talented young musicians to develop their professional career.

Shona was strongly influenced by the playing of Karen Tweed in her early years, but now plays a mixture of Irish, English, Scandinavian and self-penned material written by herself which she recorded on her debut CD "Pure Chance" in 2003 with guitarist, tenor banjo player and singer Damien OKane, which received excellent reviews in Froots, The Living Tradition, Songbook, Taplas, Irish Music Magazine and the Saturday Telegraph. In 2004 Shona appeared at Folk clubs in York, Grimsby, Harrogate and Amsterdam, festivals at Darwen (Lancs), Ulverston, Saddleworth, Warwick, Sunderland Kite Festival, Cambridge Folk Festival, Whitby folk week and Trimdon, as well as acting as a tutor at Whitby as she did last year. Shona is a keen teacher and has acted as a workshop leader with the "Fosbrookes", Saltburn Festival, Furness Tradition, and Yorkshire's Tender roots project, as well as other smaller projects.This summer Shona will be running a three day music workshop in County Kerry, in her Mother's home parish, and will also be teaching at Folkworks Summer School in August. Shona has broadcast live on BBC Radio 2 Newcastle, BBC Radio Manchester, and Radio Kerry.

Damien OKane

"The banjo jokes end here. While we all have a laugh at the banjos expense, take the time to hear one played properly. Exceptional articulation and musicality are Damiens hallmarks... fast and fluid playing with tremendous assurance. If there are many more players like him they'll soon be telling stories about guitarists!" Chris Newman

Damien, 27, hails from Coleraine in Co. Derry, Northern Ireland and has been living in Newcastle Upon Tyne since setting up residence in 2001 to become a student on Newcastle University's Folk and Traditional Music Degree course which was then in its first year. He comes from an extremely talented family where his mum and dad, Colette and Joe, introduced him to Irish Traditional Music at an early age. By the time he was eight he was turning heads with his whistle playing and became Ulster champion when he was ten. It was at the Ulster Fleadh in Ballyshannon, 1988, when Damien was first taken by the tenor banjo having met two fantastic players and future friends, Marinie Toman and Glen Creaney (RIP). Damien got his first banjo that Christmas and has been self taught until he joined the folk degree in 2001. A few years later Damien began to teach himself guitar and soon became quite accomplished on this as well. He went on to reach three All-Ireland tenor banjo finals and began gigging and touring Europe with his family band (mum Colette, sisters Sorcha and Briege and brothers Peter and Aidan with dad Joe on the sound) in Iceland, Sweden, Switzerland and Austria.

Damiens talents were being recognised far a-field and in 1997 he was asked to play music for a BBC television advert promoting the Irish Tourist Board. Meanwhile, he was attending the Ulster and All-Ireland Fleadhs annually, playing in sessions and absorbing many influences in the process. Through his experiences, Damien has embedded himself in the Irish tradition while maintaining his own style.

Damiens career was to take a turning point when he moved to England. After meeting piano accordionist, Shona Kipling in Sweden 2002, when they both attended Falun Ethno, a youth summer school run in parallel with Falun Folk Festival, they began playing together, as Shona Kipling & Damien OKane. In 2003 the duo recorded their first album 'pure chance'. 2004 saw their career take off, gigging extensively at many of the major folk festivals and clubs and receiving rave reviews for the album and their live performance. Some of the festivals include the prestigious Cambridge Folk Festival, Warwick Folk Festival, Celtic Connections and Whitby Folk Week to name but a few as well as playing at folk clubs such as The Davy Lamp and The Black Swan. However, Shona received horrific news in Spring 2004 that her father and the duo's manager at the time, Dr David Kipling had been diagnosed with lung cancer. For such a healthy, full-of-life person, this was hard for evereyone to believe. David passed away in February 2005 and is dearly missed. Shona spent every minute with her father up until that moment. David's last wish to Shona was that we keep playing and that we don't make another album until we 'really have something to say.' The duo began gigging again late 2005 and have just finished recording their second album 'Box On' - see details above.

In October 2005, Damien and Shona travelled to Cape Breton, Canada, to play at Celtic Colours International Festival, regarded as one of the biggest and best Celtic folk festivals in the world. Shona & Damiens first album 'pure chance' received rave reviews publically and critically from sources such as fROOTS, The Daily Telegraph and The Living Tradition Magazine. '...ease and professionalism that belies the young age of the artistes...an album to delight any lover of instrumental music.' Irish Music Magazine

Damien also plays with CrossCurrent (see www.myspace/crosscurrent), a fantastic quintet who have also been receiving great reviews in the press about their debut album 'momentum' and of their exciting and rousing live performance. In a recent article about CrossCurrent in fROOTS magazine they said: '...they chat and play the tunes with an understated sexiness and drive that would win over the most sceptical of audiences'. CrossCurrent released their debut album 'momentum' in July 2005 and promoted it at various festivals and events throughout the 2005 summer festival circuit including Cambridge, Warwick, Holmfirth and Gower Peninsula folk festivals. See CrossCurrent in 2006 at Sidmouth Folk Week, Broadstairs Folk Week, Bromyard Folk Festival and many more - www.crosscurrent.co.uk

When not gigging, Damien is a very keen teacher. He has led many workshops for all ages at various folk festivals and events and is a key tutor on the Tender Roots Project in Yorkshire, which focuses on the development of young folk musicians as soloists and in ensemble situations. As well as this, Damien works for Folkworks (an organisation which strives to promote traditional music in the NE of England) at The Sage Gateshead as a tutor on Caedmon Folk, teaching tenor banjo and mandolin and is Assistant Director to Kathryn Tickell of Folkestra North, a youth folk ensemble consisting of the cream of young talent in the North East of England. He also teaches at The Weekend School also based at The Sage Gateshead.

Damiens musical career has earned him credit as a creative, exciting and virtuoso player and as an excellent teacher of folk and traditional music. His banjo playing has given him a reputation as one of the finest Irish players on the scene today and Musician, the MU mag recently described him as, 'Fret King' In 2005, Damien appeared on Julian Sutton's (The Kathryn Tickell Bands virtuoso box player) album 'melodeon crimes' as well as one of his compositions being recorded by Flook on their new album Haven. He is a much sought after session musician with other bands such as bellowhead, Uiscedwr, Brian Finnegan, Rachel Unthank & The Winterset and others. His love and passion for music, most notably Irish traditional music, comes through in his creativity, personality, technical ability and stagecraft. Folk music is safe in the hands of musicians like Damien. Keep music live.