Vancouver Folk Music Festival
July 14 to 16, 2023
Susan O’Neill | Ireland
After having wowed huge festival audiences over the past few years – moonlighting with Mick Flannery and the Irish dance band, King Kong Company, and accompanying the queen of traditional music, Sharon Shannon, on her international tours – Susan O’Neill has more recently been honing her craft as a solo performer. She’s begun to pique major critical, audience and industry interest in the process.
This enigmatic Irish singer and musician gained her musical skills as one of the youngest members of the Ennis Brass Band, and garnered her gospel influences with the Really Truly Joyful Gospel Choir. SON (as she’s known) is also a songwriter of hidden depths with a truly glorious and timeless voice. Previously considered one of the country’s best kept secrets, her song “Now you see it”, from her EP of the same name, won the 2022 RTE Radio 1 award for Best Original Folk Song of the year. A secret she is no more!
Eclectically fusing traditional Irish folk with rock, soul, gospel and blues, her live performances are quite simply electrifying. Her husky vocals combined with her superb guitar technique, loop pedals and trumpet, have wowed audiences everywhere from Stradbally to Sydney, Glasgow to Glastonbury, Manhattan to Milwaukee, and many places beyond. Get ready, VFMF – it’s your turn!