Christel Rice

Like Magical Strings and guitarist Steve Reel, flutist Christel Grain is an ideal exemplory case of an American musician having a Celtic orientation. She was created and elevated in Philadelphia and it has since relocated to Colorado, but her instrumental recordings are much like the newer Celtic sounds which have emerge from Ireland within the ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s. Although Grain contains traditional Irish jigs, reels, and airs in her repertoire and may deal with something by Turlough O’Carolan (a famous harpist/composer who resided in Ireland within the 17th and 18th hundreds of years), she actually is not really a Celtic purist. Grain has mixed Irish-Celtic music with rock and roll — a thing that can be hardly uncommon in the current Celtic picture — and she’s also been inspired by Appalachian bluegrass (that was created within the U.S. but owes too much to the original music from the United kingdom Isles). We were young in Philly, Grain learned a whole lot about Celtic music from her Irish-American family members. Her great grandfather, actually, was a Celtic musician who immigrated to america from his indigenous Ireland in the first 20th hundred years. After achieving adulthood, Grain signed up for the Philadelphia University of Performing Arts, where she researched Euro-classical flute with flutist Adeline Tomasone (that has used the well-known Philadelphia Orchestra). During her years at that university, Grain played traditional music both in orchestral and chamber configurations; she also brought her flute to theatrical productions at Philly’s Forrest Movie theater. But after graduating, Grain ended up producing Celtic music — not really traditional or theatrical music — her primary concentrate and performed in a few of Philly’s Irish pubs. At 23, Grain opted to stop the modern silver precious metal flute and proceeded to go with the solid wood flute rather (which made sense provided the solid wood flute’s long background in Celtic music — both Irish and Scottish). After shifting west, Grain settled within the Boulder, CO, region and became energetic on the Colorado music picture (where she fulfilled members from the Wayfarers, an organization she toured with thoroughly in the first 2000s). Tunnel Eyesight, Rice’s debut record, was released with the independent Cuzone Information in 2003.