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Port na Gael

Port na Gael

Port na Gael is made up of four musicians who play "mostly Irish most of the time." Our unique style of vocal and instrumental arrangements, soul-stirring harmonies and lively tunes are our defining characteristics. We perform at coffee houses, festivals, house concerts, and at various performance venues in B.C and Washington.

Members

While Port na Gael's music is clearly "Celtic," individual band members come from varied musical backgrounds, bringing those rich influences with them into the musical knit.

Gewrry Bradley, 2006 Gerry Bradley, fiddle – is unabashedly and solely a creature of Irish traditional music, and often travels to Ireland to play in sessions and renew his love affair with the country and the culture as well.
Barbara Denz, 2009 Barbara Denz, vocals – blames 60s folk artists and the British Commonwealth folk music for her musical tastes, but can be heard tearing into sea shanties and Scandinavian folk songs at the least provocation.
David Denz, 2006 David Denz, Uilleann pipes, Irish flute, vocals, cittern, guitar (and whatever else is lying unprotected within reach) – claims an Irish musical background, with frequent forays almost anywhere.
Sasha Pawliuk, 2010 Sasha Pawliuk, vocals, Irish flute, whistles and bodhran (only when musically necessary) – has never quite recovered from her attempts to channel Joni Mitchell in her youth, but has allowed other folk music into her psyche before being overwhelmed by Irish traditional music.

Origins

Port na Gael is the culminating event of a collaboration that started in the late 1990's in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, at Chris Norman's Boxwood Wooden Flute Festival. Since then, Port na Gael has played at a variety of folk festivals and venues on either side of the border.

Port na Gael at Crossroads Hospice Society, Autumn 2009
Port na Gael at Crossroads Hospice Coffee House at The Gathering Place
in Coquitlam, autumn, 2009

April 08, Port na Gael

Port na Gael at the Celtic Music Festival on Hornby Island, BC, April 2008.