Laurel Martin

Traditional Irish fiddle player Laurel Martin performs in a subtle, lyrical style that is reminiscent of the regional music of County Clare and East Galway. Laurel learned her music from Master fiddler Séamus Connolly, with whom she studied from 1990-1993 under a Traditional Arts Apprenticeship grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her deep affinity for and love of the old regional fiddle styles of Ireland distinguish her both as a performer and a teacher of traditional Irish music.  

Laurel served on the faculty of the Boston College Irish Studies program as an instructor of Irish fiddle from 1994 until 2007. She is currently the director of the Wellesley College “Fiddleheads” ensemble, teaches at Indian Hill Music School in Littleton MA, and leads workshops throughout the United States and abroad.  As a teacher Laurel has been awarded Traditional Arts Master Apprentice Grants by the Massachusetts Cultural Council in 2002 and 2010.

Laurel has collaborated with her mentor Séamus Connolly to publish a book of traditional Irish tunes with two accompanying CDs. Forget Me Not: Fifty Memorable Traditional Irish Tunes was published in 2002 by Mel Bay. Laurel performs frequently with Séamus and with other Boston area musicians, including harpist Kathleen Guilday, pianist and fiddler Beth Sweeney, guitarist Mark Simos, and violin maker Bob Childs’ “Childsplay” fiddle ensemble. She has performed on radio and television in the US and in Ireland. In addition to the recorded music included with the book Forget Me Not, her playing can be heard on the Childsplay Live recording, Childsplay's Heaven and Earth and their recently released Waiting for the Dawn CDs, as well as Tony Cuffe's Sae Will We Yet. Her first solo recording, The Groves, was released in November 2006.