Tulare County Library to Host Music Duo, "Four Shillings Short"

The Celtic/Folk/World music duo Four Shillings Short will present a multi-cultural educational concert for all ages called "Around the World in 30 Instruments" at 7 p.m. on November 8 at the Tulare County Library Visalia Branch.

The husband and wife team play a fantastic array of instruments including Hammered & Mountain Dulcimer, Mandolin, Mandola, Bouzouki, Tinwhistles, Recorders, Medieval and Renaissance Woodwinds, North Indian Sitar, Charango, Bowed Psaltery, Banjo, Bodhran, Guitar, Percussion, and even a Krumhorn. This fun and informative program includes traditional music from Ireland and Scotland, India, Medieval and Renaissance Europe and the Americas.

Celebrating their 18th year together, Aodh Og O’Tuama and Christy Martin tour in the US and Ireland and are independent folk-artists.  They have made 10 recordings, give 150 concerts a year and live as full time Troubadours.  They travel from town to town performing at music festivals, theatres and performing arts centers, folk societies, libraries, private homes and schools.

Aodh Og O’Tuama grew up in a family of poets, musicians and writers.  He received his degree in Music from University College Cork, Ireland, and received a Fellowship from Stanford University in California in Medieval and Renaissance performance.  He plays Tinwhistles, Medieval and Renaissance woodwinds, Recorders, Doumbek (from Morocco), bowed Psaltery, Spoons and sings both in English, Gaelic and French.

Christy Martin grew up in a family of musicians and dancers.  From the age of 15, she studied North Indian Sitar for 10 years, 5 of them with a student of master Sitarist Ravi Shankar.  She began playing the Hammered Dulcimer in her 20’s and has studied with Maggie Sansone, Dan Duggan, Cliff Moses, Robin Petrie, Tony Elman and Glen Morgan.  In addition she plays Mandolin, Mandola, Bouzouki, Banjo, Guitar, Bodhran (Irish frame drum), Charango, bowed Psaltery and sings in English, Irish, Spanish and Sanskrit.