About the band
Mist Covered Mountains - Celtic music quartet
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Contact: info@mistcoveredmountains.com or 413-230-3107 (Donna) or 413-335-6632 (Katherine)
Donna Hébert, Katherine First, Molly Hebert-Wilson, Max Cohen
Press Release . . .
When four major talents combine in one musical group, magic happens on stage. Take the new Pioneer Valley-based Celtic quartet, Mist Covered Mountains. Playing Celtic roots music from Ireland, Scotland and French Canada with a fresh look at old favorites, members have also penned tunes destined for the fiddling canon. Award-winning fiddler Donna Hébert delivers encyclopedically accurate styling and unexpected harmonies, aided and abetted by groovemaster Max Cohen’s guitar rhythms. Molly Hebert-Wilson’s stunning Gaelic and English vocals and Katherine First’s driving, brilliant fiddle (and her colorful cowboy boots!) kick the group into overdrive, so nail down the stage for this band!
A 2008 Massachusetts Artists’ Fellow in the Folk Arts, fiddler, singer and violist Donna Hébert has a duo with Max and also plays with him in two other groups. Old-Time band Groovemama performs and teaches every summer at Old Songs and Philadelphia Folk Festivals, while the Beaudoin Legacy group are involved in the Vermont-Quebec Quadricentennial celebrations. Donna has sung and fiddled since 1993 with Franco group Chanterelle and in 1985, she co-founded Valley favorites Rude Girls, winning an Indie Award with them for their “Rude Awakening” debut on Flying Fish. Her credits solo and with Chanterelle, The Beaudoin Legacy and Groovemama include major U.S., Canadian and European festivals, residencies and conferences. A pioneering fiddle teacher, “Donna gets it all right” says string legend Darol Anger in his introduction to her “Fiddling Demystified for Strings.” Donna’s 2009 “In Full Bloom” CD of French-Canadian fiddling features “Raven’s Wing,” an audience favorite co-written with Max Cohen. Donna has eleven other recordings and is also featured on two Smithsonian/Folkways’ CD anthologies. Says Scott Alarik on NPR’s Hear and Now, “Donna’s fiddle speaks fluent français!”
Katherine First’s debut 2008 CD, The Sweet Spot, is a hit at local performances. Valley Free Radio calls the CD, “Traditional tunes with finesse and firepower.” A former Pioneer Valley Symphony player, Katherine crossed to fiddling in the 1990s and has played regularly with guitarists Brooks Williams and Max Cohen. A longtime member of Celtic rock band Dicey Riley, Katherine performs with them regularly at the Harpoon Brewery festivals in Boston. She recently joined the group Flynn 529 and when not on the road, Katherine holds court (and rocks the house!) at Elevens and leads the Session at The Basement in Northampton, MA. On fiddle, viola and electric violin, Katherine’s fiery musical soul is evident in all her performances.
Long a musical fixture in western Massachusetts, Max Cohen’s lead and rhythm guitar licks and his powerful and humorous songs take this band from Celtic to contemporary, uncovering unexpected vistas in the musical landscape. Producer for both Katherine and Donna’s solo fiddle CDs, Max also has a new solo guitar CD in progress. Max’s previous “Saltwater Color” CD received lofty praise. Guitar For The Practicing Musician raved, calling Max one of the “most musically complete players we have seen.” Max also performs with folk legend Priscilla Herdman.
Vocalist Molly Hebert-Wilson sings in Gaelic and English, joining her mother on the chorus of French-Canadian chansons à répondre. A veteran of Amherst Regional High School musicals (Little Sally: Urinetown; Monkestrap: CATS), Molly is a junior in Irish Studies and Musical Theatre at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Molly brings her strong sense of humor, her folk music performance and a decade of theater skills to her renditions of folk standards and originals by local songwriters. Her songs with Max and Donna are a program highlight, with Molly touching both the heart and the funny-bone.
The group is booking performing arts venues in New England and the New York area. Audio samples are available on the press-kit page.
To hear Katherine and Max on tracks from The Sweet Spot and for more information about Katherine, please check out: http://katherinefirst.com
And for Donna and Max’s 2008 performance for the Massachusetts Cultural Council (sampled on YouTube) and for their duo media kit, please go to: http://fiddlingdemystified.com/bands/donna_max_duo/
© 2009 Mist Covered Mountains - all rights reserved. Sound files © Donna Hébert, Max Cohen, Katherine First, Molly Hebert-Wilson.