Seamus Egan is an Irish-American musician.

Early days

Seamus Egan was born in

Hatboro Hatboro (known locally as the Boro) is a Borough (Pennsylvania), borough in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 8,238 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. History The town of Hatboro is located on land ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

to Irish immigrants Mike and Ann Egan. At the age of three his parents moved the family back home to

County Mayo County Mayo (; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. In the West Region, Ireland, West of Ireland, in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht, it is named after the village of Mayo, County Mayo, Mayo, now ge ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. He learned

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German language, German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a Reed (mou ...

from Martin Donaghue. He saw Matt Molloy and

James Galway Sir James Galway (born 8 December 1939) is an Irish virtuoso flute player from Belfast, nicknamed "The Man with the Golden Flute". After several years working as an orchestral musician, he established an international career as a solo flute pl ...

on television and suddenly decided to take up the Irish flute. Egan had won the all-Ireland championship on four different instruments by the time he was 14.

Later work

When Mick Moloney founded Green Fields of America in 1977, Seamus joined up and took lessons from Mick on the

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and in modern forms is usually made of plastic, where early membranes were made of animal skin. ...

. In 1985 he recorded a solo album ''Traditional Music Of Ireland''. In 1992 he joined Susan McKeown's band The Chanting House and appeared on a

live album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track or cassette), or digital. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th centur ...

with them.

Eileen Ivers Eileen Ivers (born July 13, 1965) is an American fiddler. Ivers was born in New York City of Irish-born parents, grew up in the Bronx and attended St. Barnabas High School. She spent summers in Ireland and took up the fiddle at the age of nin ...

was also a member of the band. In 1994 he founded Solas and has been on every one of their albums. In 1995 he recorded music for the quirky low-budget film '' The Brothers McMullen'', directed by Edward Burns. He also co-wrote the hit " I Will Remember You" with Dave Merenda and

Sarah McLachlan Sarah Ann McLachlan (born January 28, 1968) is a Canadian singer-songwriter. As of 2015, she had sold over 40 million albums worldwide. McLachlan's best-selling album to date is ''Surfacing (album), Surfacing'' (1997), for which she won two G ...

. Egan is also the producer for Solas and has worked as producer for other artists, including American singer-songwriter Antje Duvekot, fiddler

Liz Carroll Liz Carroll (born September 19, 1956) is an American fiddler and composer. She is a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts' National Heritage Fellowship Award. Carroll and collaborator Irish guitarist John Doyle were nominated for a Gr ...

, and singer

Karan Casey Karan Casey (born 1969) is an Irish folk singer, and a former member of the Irish band Solas. She resides in Cork, Ireland. Early years Casey was born in Ballyduff Lower, Kilmeaden, County Waterford, Ireland. Her family encouraged her to si ...

Discography

Solo albums

* Traditional Music Of Ireland (1985) * A Week In January (1990) * When Juniper Sleeps (1996) * Early Bright (2020)

Seamus Egan, Eugene O'Donnell & Mick Moloney

* Three Way Street (1993)

As session musician

* The Brothers McMullen (Soundtrack) (1995) * Richard Shindell, ''Blue Divide'' (1995) * Eileen Ivers, ''Wild Blue'' (1996) * Celtic Tapestry (1999)

With Solas

* Solas (1996) * Sunny Spells and Scattered Showers (1997) * The Words That Remain (1998) * The Hour Before Dawn (2000) * The Edge of Silence (2002) * Another Day (2003) * Waiting for an Echo (2005) * Reunion-A Decade of Solas (CD/DVD) (2006) * For Love and Laughter (2008) * The Turning Tide (2010) * Shamrock City (2013) * All These Years (2016)

References

External links

irishphiladelphia.com Interview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Egan, Seamus 1969 births American emigrants to Ireland American people of Irish descent Living people Musicians from County Mayo People from Hatboro, Pennsylvania Songwriters from Pennsylvania