Festa: John Spillane & Pauline Scanlon, Canb Irish Club, March 16

Festa: John Spillane & Pauline Scanlon, Canb Irish Club, March 16

The Canberra Irish Club & Troubadour Music presents JOHN SPILLANE & PAULINE SCANLON - Two of Ireland's Finest Folk Singers Together In Concert!

Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with 2 amazing singers in concert together at the CANBERRA IRISH CLUB from 7.30pm on Friday 16th March. Bookings Essential

Cork native, John Spillane is a singer-songwriter, storyteller, poet, & entertainer who can charm and mesmerise any audience.

From Dingle, West Kerry, singer-songwriter, Pauline Scanlon, has been featured vocalist with the Sharon Shannon Band, one half of the duo Lumiere, and a solo artist in her own right, entrancing audiences worldwide with her distinctly delicate intensity.

JOHN SPILLANE is a musician, songwriter, performer, recording artist, storyteller, poet, dreamer - a canvass filled with colour and brilliance.

His music transports the listener; his live performance captivates the audience. In a world filled with strife and upheaval, a time-out with John Spillane is enough to ease the load a bit on anyone lucky enough to bask in his light. The man and his music are pure magic.

What makes John special is that he is an artist who knows how to deliver all that he has to offer to anyone of any age, male or female, no matter the musical preference. Place him in the genre of folk, acoustic, traditional, world or pop - that’s fine with John. He’s a man who is very comfortable in his skin. Whether performing solo with guitar, with gentle accompaniment or with full band before 10, 10,000 or 100,000, John entertains, charms, and mesmerizes.

John is a native of Cork, the County he lovingly describes as “the centre of the universe”, and it has been a huge creative influence on him. Vocally, he is quite unique with an almost sean nós-like element in his singing and he is said to have a voice “full of honesty, commitment and sensitivity”.

Two-time Meteor award winner, John is one of the most accomplished songwriters in Ireland today. Among those who have covered his songs are Christy Moore, Karan Casey, Pauline Scanlon, Cathy Ryan, Sharon Shannon, Sean Keane, George Murphy, to name a few. He performs to audiences large and small everywhere.

“ … funny, quirky, massively entertaining. John is a story teller, a shanachie.” Dan Regan, Founder, Kansas City Irish Festival.


PAULINE SCANLON hails from Dingle, West Kerry, Pauline is one half of celebrated singing duo LUMIERE, a project which has seen her perform throughout the world in recent years including a performance in Carnegie Hall in 2014.

This vocalist and songwriter galvanised the Irish music scene with her stunning debut album, Red Colour Sun. Coming from the Irish tradition yet equally versed on the world and contemporary music realms, Scanlon is capable of making the oldest ballads sound immediate and fresh while granting newer material a timeless resonance.

As a vocalist, Pauline has performed and recorded with a wide range of artists including Damien Dempsey, Sinéad O’Connor, Eleanor Shanley, Karan Casey, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, Andrea Corr,John Spillane and Seamus Begley. Pauline has been involved with a wide range of collaborative singing projects including ‘The Irish Sea Sessions’, ‘A Stór Mo Chroí’ and ‘Homeward Bound’ all projects involving the leading exponents of Irish song.

Gossamer is her first solo album in 10 years, and is a collection of songs steeped in loss and love. Produced by long time collaborator John Reynolds (Sinéad O’Connor, Seun Kuti, Herbie Hancock, Damien Dempsey) it sees Pauline push herself out of the acoustic and into a more electric soundscape. Gossamer unveils her palette of ferocity and fragility in a new, dramatic context.

"Her voice is a superb mix of china cup fragility and steely strength” The Irish Times