Meet the 2024 Headlining Band — Blaz Dañjerus

The headlining band for the 2024 Samhain Celtic New Year Festival is…

Blaz Dañjerus (Breton for “dangerous taste”) is an exciting new project focusing on both Irish and Breton dance music and featuring the musical talents of Preston Wilde, Channing Dodson, and Zac Léger.

Preston Wilde (fiddle, Flemish bagpipes, uilleann pipes, bombarde) grew up in Northern California where he first heard traditional dance music in the form of a Finbar Furey recording belonging to his father. He began learning the uilleann pipes at age 17 with the help of the late Dingle piper Con Durham as well as the Pub Scouts, the local Irish music collective in Chico, CA. Now residing in the Portland, Oregon area, he frequently plays at regional céilís, Sean-nós Northwest workshops and events, local sessions, and concerts. Throughout his time playing music all over North America, Ireland, and the UK, Preston has performed with Ensemble Galilei, An Irish Christmas, Cake, Alasdair Fraser, Kevin Burke and many others.

Channing Dodson (bombarde, binioù-kozh, Turkish oud, uilleann pipes, & flute) started learning the Scottish bagpipes in his teens with Jay Salter in Santa Cruz, California. He later went on to study piping with Scottish gold medalists James McColl and Allan MacDonald of Glenuig. A summer in Ireland led to taking up the uilleann pipes, and Channing has gone on to perform in the Portland Christmas Revels and on stage with some of Ireland’s greatest musicians, including Kevin Burke, Paddy Keenan, and Paddy O’Brien.

Channing first discovered Breton music through the recordings of Canadian band Rare Air and the peerless Breton flute virtuoso Jean-Michel Veillon. He has been obsessively collecting, learning, and playing it on his own for more than twenty years and finally decided it was time to share this little-known gem of the Celtic music world with the rest of the local musical community.

Zac Léger (button accordion, guitar, bouzouki, vocals) is a multi-instrumentalist and singer based in Portland, Oregon. A winner of several All-Ireland awards, he has appeared on over 2 dozen albums and has toured, performed and recorded with the likes of The Chieftains, vocalist Lisa Lambe of Celtic Women, Eileen Ivers and Immigrant Soul, John Doyle and Liz Carroll, Irish accordionist John Whelan, Scottish fiddler Jamie Laval, Irish Jazz/rock fusion band The Brilliant Gypsies, and the stage productions Women of Ireland, An Irish Christmas, Emerald Beat, Celtic Crossroads, and Ireland: The Show (where he also served as musical director).