Milwaukee Irish Fest Summer School Instructors
Note: All times are listed in CENTRAL TIME ZONE. Thank you!
Joanna Hyde
Instructor Website: https://www.facebook.com/tradduo/
Teaching Intermediate and Advanced Fiddle (T-W-Th)
Note: Unfortunately Áine McGeeney will not be able to available to teach at the Summer School this year. Joanna Hyde will be appearing with Goitse and will teach Áine's slate of fiddle classes. Contact us for any questions.
Joanna Hyde is a vibrant and dynamic fiddler and vocalist whose music career has brought her to an array of countries including the US, Canada, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, France, and Iceland, among others. She has performed, recorded, and taught with her brother Iain, her transatlantic trio One for the Foxes, and her husband and musical partner Tadhg Ó Meachair at various concert venues, festivals, and workshops throughout these regions. Likewise, Joanna has toured with an assortment of other artists and projects including Aoife Scott, The Outside Track, Goitse, Kalos, Danceperados of Ireland, and the famed Irish Folk Festival tour of Germany.
A Denver native, Joanna grew up learning a range of musical styles, seeking out opportunities to study Irish music and step dance wherever she could. She graduated from Colorado College with a BA in Music, and was recognized with the Music Department’s top performance and academic awards. In 2011, Joanna was selected as one of ten scholars from across the United States to receive the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation's Graduate Arts Award, with which she pursued an MA in Irish Traditional Music Performance at the University of Limerick’s Irish World Academy of Music and Dance. She also taught for both BA and MA music programs at the University during her time in Limerick, and has taught for almost two decades both privately and at workshops, festivals and summer schools across the US, Canada and Ireland.
In recent years Joanna has performed at many of the top Irish and Celtic music festivals in North America, including the Michigan Irish Music Festival, Milwaukee Irish Fest, Dublin Irish Festival, Goderich Celtic Roots Festival, and Spanish Peaks International Celtic Festival, to name a few. Her trio, One for the Foxes, has been well-received on both sides of the Atlantic, and was awarded “Album of the Year” by the 2021 ACLSR Music Awards, with their music being described as “...subtly yet significantly fresh...[with] gorgeous vocal arrangements” (The Irish Echo).
Additionally, Joanna enjoys composing and arranging for a variety of projects, including her role as co-producer of a special arts audio documentary called “On the Wireless”, commissioned by Cork County Council in association with Creative Ireland on the topic of creativity in older age.