Sarah McQuaid

Photo by Alastair Bruce (www.alastairbruce.co.uk)

Renowned for her warm, engaging stage presence, Sarah McQuaid is a versatile and beguiling performer. In addition to her own elegantly crafted originals, she interprets traditional Irish and Appalachian folk songs, Elizabethan ballads, 1930s jazz numbers, surprise covers and lively guitar instrumentals with panache and poignance.

Born in Spain, raised in Chicago and holding dual Irish and American citizenship, Sarah spent 13 years in Ireland and now lives near Penzance, Cornwall, in the southwest of England. As might be expected of one who has led such a peripatetic existence, Sarah developed a taste for the road early on: From the age of twelve she was embarking on tours of the US and Canada with the Chicago Children’s Choir. At eighteen she went to France for a year to study philosophy at the University of Strasbourg, where her performance at a local folk club drew a rave review in the Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace.

In 1994, Sarah moved to Ireland, where she became a weekly folk music columnist for the Evening Herald and a contributor to Hot Press magazine. She is also the author of The Irish DADGAD Guitar Book, described by The Irish Times as “a godsend to aspiring traditional guitarists,” and has presented workshops on the DADGAD tuning at festivals and venues around the globe.

Her debut solo album, When Two Lovers Meet, featured traditional tunes and songs along with one original number. “Sarah’s voice is both as warm as a turf fire and as rich as matured cognac.... An astonishing debut by a unique talent,” wrote the Rough Guide To Irish Music. Despite the critical acclaim, a long break from the music scene followed, during which Sarah married Feargal Shiels and had two children, Eli and Lily Jane.

The move to the other side of the Irish Sea was triggered by the death in 2004 of her mother, in whose former home she now lives and to whom her second album, 2008’s I Won’t Go Home ’Til Morning, was dedicated. Says Sarah: “My first album was immersed in Irish traditional music, which I still love--but this time round, I felt the need to revisit the Southern Appalachian songs and tunes that I learned during my childhood. All the songs on this recording have powerful emotional resonances for me, and all are connected in one way or another to my mother. Looking back, I guess it was kind of a cathartic process.”

Now busy with upcoming tours and concerts in Ireland, the UK, Europe and the USA, Sarah is currently assembling material for her third solo album, provisionally titled The Plum Tree And The Rose.

For more information visit her website at: www.sarahmcquaid.com