At Home and Abroad

Mick McAuley is an Irish musician, composer and songwriter who has recorded and toured internationally for many years. While his music is rooted firmly in the Irish tradition, he has been part of a movement which continues to push the musical boundaries of that tradition to bring Irish music to a wider and more diverse audience around the world. As a long-time member of the Irish-American ensemble SOLAS, he has recorded and toured nine albums with them and received widespread international acclaim. The Boston Herald hailed SOLAS as "the best Irish traditional band in the world". Mick grew up in Ireland in the embrace of a large musical family supported and nurtured by a community of older musicians who gave freely of their time, talent and music to ensure the passing down of that centuries-old cultural tradition. By his teens, he was also seeking out more contemporary singers and musicians. He played with Ron Kavana (Alias Band), Terry Woods (Sweeneys Men, The Pogues) and Paddy Keenan (The Bothy Band) while in London in the early '90's and began to tour at that time with the acclaimed Irish folk singer Niamh Parsons. Mick found the ideal balance of traditional and contemporary in the instrumentals and songs of the newly-formed Solas while in the bustling Irish music scene of New York in the mid-nineties. Having guested on Karan Casey's debut album Songlines in 1997, he soon found himself in the famous SIGMA studios in Philadelphia recording Solas' album The Words That Remain with Bela Fleck and Iris Dement as guests. A multi-instrumentalist, Mick plays accordion, melodeon, concertina, whistles and guitar and has been a guest on many recordings and performances including Mary Chapin Carpenter, Patti Larkin, Paul Brennan (Clannad), Susan McKeown and Mick Hanly among many others. Since 2015, Mick plays melodeons for 17-time Grammy winner STING in his autobiographical theatre production "The Last Ship".