2023 Samhain Festival headliner is Two Rivers Ceili Band

For over 50 years, our region has been rich with Irish music and Irish dance. Dancers have enjoyed céilí (Irish social) and set dancing to great live music, and learned step dancing and Sean-Nós (old-style) dancing from great teachers. What the region hasn’t had was a dedicated céilí band–that is, musicians committed to providing music for céilí and set dancing. The Two Rivers Céilí Band assembled in July 2022 to remedy this.

In Ireland and worldwide, céilí bands represent the talents of their locality. Two Rivers Céilí Band well represents our region with fiddles, flutes, whistles, uilleann pipes, guitar, piano and song.

Our members:

Niamh Branigan is a fiddle player from Portland. She has served as Youth Officer to the Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann Micheál Ó Domhnaill Branch of Oregon (CCÉ Oregon) since 2019; as the Regional Youth Officer to the West Region since 2020; and as the Provincial Youth Officer for Comhaltas Ceoltóirí North America from 2022-2023. She attends Portland State University, and hosts youth-oriented sessions and events in the area. 

Teresa Baker plays whistle and piano. She has played for Irish dance in the Northwest for many years. Recordings include piano for Paddy O’Brien, Co. Offally (accordion), Dan Possumato (accordion and melodeon) and Preston Howard Wilde (uilleann pipes). She also sings with Andrea Wild and Friends and is learning button accordion.

Fiddle player and amateur historian Mary Carey is a founding member of CCÉ Oregon. She has studied with eminent Irish fiddlers Kevin Burke, John Carty and James Kelly, and produced the Comhaltas Fleadh Fest historical videos for the Western US Region.

Angie Cathey plays flute, whistle, and sings. She plays with the Portland Scottish Fiddle Club. Past projects include Swanky Ceilih, Wild Thyme and Twelve Miles from Home. She has studied with Chris Norman, Kevin Crawford, Paddy Keenan, Joanie Madden and Mary Bergen.

Nancy Conescu is a guitarist and singer living in Portland. Over the years, she has toured extensively throughout the US, as well as Ireland, Brittany, Japan, France and Australia, while accompanying such players as Laurence Nugent, Sean Keane, Rose Flanagan, and the duo Gerry Harrington and Charlie Piggot. She’s also recorded on a smattering of other people’s CDs, as well as a couple of her own.

Emily Muldoon Dineen grew up Irish step dancing and playing Carolan’s tunes, thanks to her Irish father (from Kinvara, Co. Galway). She attended Interlochen Arts Academy in high school and Carnegie Mellon for a music performance degree in oboe. She is a founding member of the Charlotte (NC) Irish Connection’s trad music scene. She started playing in proper sessions when living in Galway from 2010-2011, learning tunes through the Dusty Banjos community sessions. She enjoys playing in sessions around town and taking whistle lessons through OAIM.

Nancy Jarrell has sung, danced, and fiddled around the region since the last century. She has taught set dancing at Cascadia Irish Music Week and is a founding member of CCÉ Oregon. During the pandemic she co-designed the film “Splendid Isolation” with Emily Muldoon Dineen. Most recently, along with Angie Cathey, she designed the Bloomsday benefit for Corrib Theatre and performed background piano. She sings in the Welsh Choir and The Columbia County Chorale.

Maria Los grew up playing piano and has studied fiddle with Betsey Branch and Kevin Burke. She is enjoying reemerging into the Irish music world now that her children are teens. 

Tamara Mautner is an Oregon Coast native, and lifelong hobby musician.  She has experience singing, acting in musicals, playing piano, saxophone, flute, French horn, drums, trombone, and guitar. She has most recently found her real passion playing traditional Irish music on the whistle and Irish flute with the wonderful folks in Portland.

Elizabeth O’Connor began her musical career at Mrs. Anderson’s Musical Kindergarten in SW Portland. She took up the cello in grade school, eventually studying with Hamilton Cheifetz and playing in numerous chamber music groups around Portland. She began studying fiddle and violin as an adult, studying with Betsy Branch and Virgie Daigle. She plays with the medieval ensemble Musica Universalis (violin/fiddle and vielle), the renaissance ensemble Cassis (cello and violin/fiddle), and the 19th century music ensemble Fireside Social Orchestra (cello).

Brenda Scearcy has been teaching pennywhistle for 25 years. She has studied with Joanie Madden of Cherish the Ladies and Mary Bergin. Her teaching style can be seen on her YouTube channel, Brenda Scearcy Pennywhistle. She performs with Jim Loewenherz in Innisfree.

Tania Correia Skinner grew up in Chicago playing Irish music on the tin whistle with Noel Rice as her teacher and mentor. After college she moved to Oregon, focusing on her career and raising children. She returned to Irish music during the pandemic by taking up the uilleann pipes.

Therese Vogel dabbled in many fiddle styles before settling on Irish music. She has studied with renowned fiddlers Kevin Burke, Randal Bays and Dan Compton and is currently a student of New York fiddler Brian Conway.  She is a long- time member of the contra dance group Portland Megaband.