What made you want to work in Music, why this career?
Abby has played fiddle and piano since the age of six. Stephen has played guitar, keyboard and banjo since the age of ten – there’s been no looking back since! While both of us are professional music teachers, and Stephen a sometimes Primary School Teacher, we have been playing music professionally together non-stop ever since we first met back in 2013. It’s our passion and love for the tradition and the music that keeps us in this career – I don’t think we’ll ever be fully out of it. Even if we go on to explore other careers, we’ll always be playing, touring and gigging at any opportunity we get!
How are you keeping busy during COVID?
Keeping busy during COVID has not been a problem for us; Stephen has been up the walls finishing the final semester of his music degree in the Cork School of Music (remotely of course). We’ve both been teaching, but Abby is teaching full-time in every sense of the phrase – she takes several students for hours on end on Zoom or WhatsApp every single day! As well as all of this, we’ve been doing two weekly live streams on the Raglan Road Facebook page (shout out to everybody in Raglan Road Orlando, which has just re-opened!). Now that Raglan Road has re-opened, we will continue to stream live concerts, but on our own music pages instead (see below).
Aside from music, we’ve been walking a lot and catching up with friends virtually. Stephen is involved in a weekly poker game with a bunch of friends from school, Abby is kept very busy playing Red Dead Redemption on her Xbox, and we’ve both taken part in various Zoom quizzes with our friends and family, ranging in subject matter from Harry Potter to Irish Traditional Music. We even took part in a Zoom ‘Murder Mystery’. We never have a shortage of things to do!
What are some of your goals?
Our dream is to travel around Ireland, America and the whole world (post-COVID of course) playing music and touring with our albums. We also want to build our own recording studio in our home to continue recording and
producing our music. And of course, to continually improve our musicianship and learn more and more about the tradition; the songs and the tunes – which are, of course, at the centre of everything that we do.
What keeps pushing you forward?
The desire to be the best musicians we can possibly be, to tour the world, and to achieve all of the goals and dreams we mentioned above.
What do you love most about your job?
The opportunity to play, sing, record and improve musically every single day – and to get paid for doing it!
Do you do any ongoing training & education?
Stephen has just finished his second college degree – the first one being a Bachelor of Education and Psychology, and the second one being a Bachelor of Arts in Music. Abby completed her Bachelor of Music from the Cork School of Music in 2016, and is currently working on her diploma in instrumental teaching.
Stephen has signed up for three professional development courses for
the summer – two for teaching children with special needs, and a third for teaching primary school children remotely. This is what he hopes to be doing for the foreseeable future, while waiting for COVID-19 to pass; before we tour the world again!
Where can we see you perform, once COVID is behind us?
Hard to say, as at the moment, live music is actually not allowed in most Irish venues due to the COVID restrictions. Your best bet is to keep an eye on our Facebook pages for live streams and updates on our tour plans.
Can we buy your music online?
Yes – we have CDs available both digitally and via mail order. Contact
sodea92@gmail.com, or private message our Facebook pages (below).
Do you have a website, Facebook account to get more information about your music?
Yes; in general, you can catch Stephen on Facebook and Abby on Instagram & Facebook.