About Eliot Grasso (uilleann pipes, flute, tin whistle)
Eliot has taught, performed, and recorded throughout North America and Europe for over two decades and is a founding member of the Celtic ensemble Dréos. He has performed for President Clinton at the NEA Awards, appeared as a featured artist on “Prairie Home Companion,” performed and taught for the William Kennedy Piping Festival in Armagh, and appeared as a soloist in the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall for Scotland’s National Piping Festival, Piping Live. Eliot has over a dozen recordings to his name, including an album of unaccompanied uilleann piping, which is volume 1 of Na Píobairí Uilleann's series of master pipers, The Ace and Deuce of Piping. Eliot holds a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of Oregon, and a M.A. in ethnomusicology from the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at the University of Limerick. Grasso’s artistic and academic work as a performer, recording artist, composer, and researcher has earned awards from the traditional music community, the recording industry, and the academic establishment. He teaches music at Gutenberg College in Eugene, Oregon. A fuller picture of his endeavors is available at www.eliotgrasso.com.
About Glen Waddell (guitar)
A Canadian multi-instrumentalist, Glen Waddell grew up immersed in the music of his Scottish-immigrant family, with Canadian Folk/Rock/Country and British brass banding influences mixed in. He played with the then-popular pacific northwest band Skye soon after his move to Oregon in 2001, and quickly garnered a reputation for trad and folk accompaniment in the pacific northwest—he joined forces with Eliot Grasso somewhere around 2006. On stage, in a studio or pub, or even a well-tiled bathroom, playing music is a bit of a sanctuary and an energy source for him—he is quick to encourage younger musicians to protect their passions from monetization, pushing back on the more-common advice to “Find what you love, then find a way to make money at it.”
As always, shows are ALL AGES and no cover charge.
