AlgomaTrad

Loretto Reid

single post

Loretto Reid

Loretto Reid immigrated to Canada in December 1988 from Co. Sligo, Ireland, one of the most famous musical counties for traditional music in Ireland.  Loretto began playing Tin Whistle at the age of five and is considered a virtuoso player on this instrument.  She also plays Irish Flute, Concertina and Button Accordion and is a composer of  original material and arrangements of traditional tunes.    Loretto began performing with multi-instrumentalist Brian Taheny in 1978.  With the Reid-Taheny band, Loretto played at all the major Festivals in Ireland and toured through out Europe & North America with performers such as Christy Moore, Clannad, and Glass Tiger.  The group also performed on Radio and Television in Ireland, England, France, Germany, the U.S.A. and Canada and at many major Canadian and American festivals some of which include: the Winnipeg Folk Festival, Vancouver Folk Festival, St. John’s & Labrador Folk Festival, Goderich Celtic Summer College and Folk Festival, Kentucky Folk Festival, Milwaukee Irish Festival, Saline Celtic Festival, Cincinnati Celtic Festival, Mariposa Folk Festival, and the Summerfolk Festival, Owen Sound.  Concert performances include the Ford Centre for the Performing Arts,  Massey Hall, Glen Gould Studio, Art Gallery of Ontario, Du Maurier Theatre ,Toronto;  Regent Theatre, Picton;  Stanley A Milner Theatre, Edmonton;  Irish Cultural Centre, Calgary;  Capitol Theatre, Nelson;  National Library Auditorium, Ottawa;  Symphony Orchestra London,  Ontario.  The Reid-Taheny Band produced 4 recordings, including the Juno-nominated “Children of Lir”.  Loretto has also performed on numerous other recordings including the “Celtic Reverie” (with Dan Gibson) nominated for the 2005 JUNO “Instrumental Album of the Year”.

Loretto composed and/or performed music for several documentaries, plays, and shows including: “Hungers Children”, (concerning Gross Isle, the quarantine island for the Irish immigrants to Canada, fleeing the famine which resulted mainly from the failure of the potato crops of the 1800’s), which was broadcast on CBC TV’s ‘the Witness’ Series in ’94 and released in Europe and America, in 1996; The Barrens Quest, with Jim McGrath, first broadcast in March ‘97 as part of the CBC series “The Nature of Things”; the Vision TV network documentary The Village Of Widows” with George Vacval, which won the award for “Best Humanitarian Documentary” at the Toronto Hot Docs 2000;  “The Riverdale Hospital Project”, broadcast September, 2000;   “The Celtic Dance Company of Canada”, Jan. 2001; “The Immortal Hour”, by Fiona MacLeod, a 19th century playwright, staged at the Ignatieff Theatre, University Of Toronto, 2001; and “Mummers & Masks” documentary for the CBC & Vision TV late 2002-2003