New Collaborations...

Last spring, Haley played a couple "pick up" gigs with two different groups of musicians. Both were kind of unplanned and just worked out the way they did based on proximity and necessity but the two groups kinda worked and this fall Haley had a chance to get together with each again for gigs.

Mothers' Pride first performed together last St. Patrick's Day at a lovely, well-attended gig at the Philadelphia Art Museum. They received two standing ovations and decided they might like to play together again. The group consists of Gabriel Donahue, who plays about every instrument known to man and does it well...he even uses loop pedals and puts on his own rather impressive one-man show. Gabriel's wife, Marian Makins, is the voice of the group and also adds some bodhran percussion. Jonathan Srour is a fabulous flute player and an even better dancer. His time is a bit limited as he is currently doing his medical residency. There is a lot of talent in the group and they work well together with very little rehearsal...which is always a plus when time is limited. They have performed a couple festivals in unlikely sounding places...The Seagirt Festival where they performed in a shooting range and the Maryland Irish Festival where they were in the Birthing Center of the Cow Palace.
Oh, the stories Haley will have to tell.

Shared Madness is Haley's other new collaboration and they came together last April at the Ormond Beach Festival. Haley was invited to perform and knew Don Penzien would be there with Megan Irby as their band Beirt le Chéile so she asked him to back her on guitar. Don and Megan then invited Haley to do their sets with them and Shared Madness was born. (The name came about because of a man in a very large, ornate chicken suit at the festival.) Don is a very talented guitarist and Megan has the voice of an angel. When Haley's cousin Thomas scheduled his wedding in October, we asked Don and Megan, who live in North Carolina, if they would like to do a few gigs with Haley on our way. They rehearsed for an afternoon to put together their program then did a few gigs together. They have a lot of fun together!!

They are scheduled for a number of festivals and other filler gigs through this coming spring throughout the southeastern United States. If you live in the south, they may soon be performing somewhere near you! Check them out at sharedmadnessmusic.com.

September 2017

My baby is growing up.

She's an incredible young lady and she amazes me everyday with her intelligence, determination, perseverance, hard work, and strong sense of who she is.  Haley started school a couple weeks ago. This year she is taking two classes online through the community college as a dual enrolled student. Online courses because we have some travel planned and cannot guarantee she would be able to attend classes in person at the college.

Haley decided she'd like to try some different courses this year and see if anything appeals to her (as much as music). This semester she chose Psychology and Art Appreciation and is enjoying both, though they are a lot of work. The first week was on the light side then, she received lists of work for week two. Like any perfectionist (ask me how I know), she felt like she needed to get everything done on Monday and was a bit overwhelmed. I sat with her and showed her how to go through the list and parse out the work in her planner so she was doing a bit every day, keeping track of deadlines, and not being overwhelmed every Monday when the lists arrive.

She's a quick learner and the next week set up her schedule on her own. She quickly got into a routine.

I am so proud of this girl. She is handling her college classes plus her regular schoolwork, practicing violin and fiddle, continuing to work on her novel, and doing most of the meal preparation in the home. Haley decided a couple months ago to try out the vegan lifestyle and is very dedicated to making it work plus loves to try new recipes so we are eating very well.

Here's a little video of her this summer strutting her stuff on stage this past July in the Studio2Stage production That's Dancing 2017...