Bands & Projects

Cara

The most successful project right now is Cara. Founded in 2003 with Claus Steinort (flute), Gudrun Walther (fiddle & vocals), Sandra Steinort (flute, piano and vocals) and Jürgen Treyz (guitars) we are on the road for almost ten years now. In 2010 Ryan Murphy (pipes and flutes) and Jeana Leslie (piano, fiddle, vocals) replaced Claus and Sandra, who left Cara due to family reasons. We have been touring all over Germany and Europe, incl. Ireland and the UK. We have also played in  the US, where we appeared at huge festivals like Milwaukkee, ICONS in Boston, Chicago Celtic Fest and Kansas City Irish Fest. Here is our latest promo video. More videos are in the video section:

Bodhran Insight

Together with my dear colleague at the BodhranWeekends, Guido Plüschke, I produced a CD called BodhranInsight. We are not only showing a retrospect of previous recordings, but also produced some tracks especially for this album, including a bodhrán duet, a multitrack recording of the two of us. It's available in the shop.

Collaboration with Christian Hedwitschak

I collaborate a lot with bodhrán maker Christian Hedwitschak. The main result is the Signature Line RWE Bodhrán. The design of this drum influenced many other drums in the bodhrán world, even outside Christian's workshop. I was also involved in the development of the LightLine and BasicLine series and the new CoreLine series. This has led to bodhrán-info being one of the three Hedwitschak Premium Partners.

Guest musician

Ove the years, I had the pleasure of working as a guest musician in a few projects.

Johannes Schiefner - Watergrasshill

A great CD of Germany's leading Uilleann Piper. It was a great honour for me to be asked to be part of this CD. Here is the link to Johannes' myspace.

Blue

In 2006 I had the chance to record with three friends: Colman Connolly; low whistle, uilleann pipes, flute und whistles, Tobi Kurig; bouzouki, Franziska Urton; fiddle. The Album "Blue" turned out to be a great recording and it was a great pleasure to be part of it!

Olaf Sickmann

A while ago I recorded on a project of Tin Whistle and guitar player Olaf Sickman (yes, I know, but that's his name ! :-)). The result was Olaf's CD "Sommertiefe". This availabe in the Shop. Great fun recording this one!

Previous projects.

A short look into history:

Steampacket

In December 1999 Stefan Schneider (fiddle), Claus Steinort (flute), Andreas Lassak (guitar) and I founded the band "Steampacket". We have since added Tina Fastje (fiddle) and replaced Andreas with Tobi Kurig. Although we play mainly irish music, the occasional Breton, Scottish and even Finnish piece makes it into the repertoire: "Traditional Irish Music - And Beyond." The CD is available in the shop. Here is a review at Irishmusicreview.com.

DeReelium

DeReelium formed in 1996 and we recorded our first CD in 1999. DeReelium is based in Hannover and we host the regular session every Sunday at the Irish Harp, plus Sessions at the Kuriosum in Hannover and the Irish Pub at Brüderstraße.

Many other bands and musicians, including More Maids, An Tor, Navan and Ian Smith and Steven Campbell have invited me to play with them, either live or on a recording. It was always a pleasure!