First Lady of Celtic Music Moya Brennan Performs 3 Benefit Concerts Raising $24,000 for Lou Gehrig's Disease!
We were so excited last March to hear from our good friend and supporter Thomas J. O'Neill. Tom had spoken to his friend Moya Brennan, a world renowned Celtic Musician, and they wanted to put together a group of concerts benefiting our Foundation and the patients we serve.
Moya had come to Mashpee in 2009 and blessed us with a fabulous performance and a great crowd, and we were thrilled to once again have the opportunity to work with her and her band mates. She would be performing from the album Voices & Harps and be accompanied by Irish Harp Virtuoso, Cormac De Barra and Sinead Madden, an accomplished fiddler, violinist and pianist.
Grammy winner Moya Brennan is the voice of Clannad, and was the host of last year's PBS special on the history of Irish Music, Music of Ireland - Welcome Home and has recently performed with the group Tea with the Maggies, and collaborated on the benefit song "From a Distance" with Sinead O'Connor and Daniel O'Donnell for the Victims of The Magdalene Laundries. Her beautiful voice has graced 17 albums with Clannad and a raft of breathtaking releases under her own name, as well as TV's Harry's Game, and the films Last of the Mohicans and Robin of Sherwood.
Bono considers her voice: "One of the greatest the human ear has ever experienced."
We planned 3 shows, the first, at Providence College, the second, at the Cotuit Center for the Arts and the last, at ZUMIX in Boston. After each event, Moya, Cormac and Sinead stayed to greet the crowd, thank their fans and sign autographs and pose for pictures.
The Providence College show took place on Thursday, March 8, 2012. Proceeds from that event benefited the Providence College Theatre Program and the newly formed Bobby Murray, Jr. Communication Equipment Fund at our Foundation. Bobby Murray Jr. is from Newtown Connecticut and has been living with A.L.S. for seven years.
The very next night, Friday, March 9, the sold-out concert was held at the Cotuit Center for the Arts, followed by a cocktail party with the artists and their fans.
Our Third concert was another sold out show, and was held at ZUMIX in East Boston on Saturday, March 10. The concert was held in memory of
Kimberly (Brinson)Colasanti (Shown on left) of North Attleboro. Colasanti, only 45, passed away after a courageous battle with Lou Gehrig's Disease in November 2010. Proceeds of this concert benefited our Foundation and ZUMIX to continue their work with teens.
Each show was special in its own way. The musicians told stories, jokes and interpreted songs for fans. They seemed to be very in tune with the mood of the audience and adjusted their melody choices accordingly. Audience members were mesmerized by the harmonic melodies of the three gifted performers and were overheard exclaiming "she has the voice of an angel" referring to Brennan. Another audience member who had heard a teenage Brennan sing in her father's pub in Ireland thought she had only gotten better with age.
Click one of the photo's below to browse pictures from all three events:
A Very Special Thank You to Thomas J. O'Neill, Inc. of Mashpee for making these events possible!
Thank you to ALL our sponsors who helped make our Cotuit Center for the Arts event possible! 
