I N T E R V I E W S
2014 ~ Interview by Jane McNab
The Observer, Melbourne, Australia
2012 ~ Personal Notes
published at GlobalArtsCollective.org
2009 ~ Letter from an Emigrant
published by Kealkill National School, Co. Cork
2005 ~ Interview by Dr. Rachael Kohn
Presenter, ABC-Radio National, Australia
1999 ~ Interview by Dr. Gary Lewis
Australian historian
1999 ~ Interview by Greg Ozimek
Reviewer, PhenomeNews (USA)
1998 ~ Interview by Ray Dorsey
Editor, Chaos Realm (USA)
1998 ~ Interview by Judson Wood
Reviewer, Alternate Music Press (USA)
1997 ~ Interview by Ben Kettlewell

The music of Mairéid Sullivan and Ben Kettlewell is a hybrid of soaring traditional
Slow Airs, contemporary songs and mesmerizing dance rhythms – hypnotic soundtracks forming a cocoon of comforting and energizing emotions and imagery.

Recordings: 
Time after Time (2006) film soundtrack; 
Never Drift Apart (2003); 
For Love's Caress: a Celtic journey (1998);
A Celtic Evening (1998); Duet with Chieftains' harper, Derek Bell (RIP).
Dancer (1994).

Compilations:
Celtic Voices: Women of Song (1995) which featured on Billboard's World Music Top 10 over 9 months across 1995/96
Celtic Twilight (1995)

Publications:
- Ancient Self – Memoirs (1997), Interleaf Press (poetry collection)
- Celtic Women in Music (1999), Quarry Music Press
- Published Articles supporting the 1990s Celtic music revival.
- Water for Food: The Wicking Wormbed Revolution" (2009)

Contributions:
- Celtic Tides: Traditional Music in a New Age (1998), by Martin Melhuish
- My America: What My Country Means to Me, Scribner (2002), by Hugh Downs
- Celtic Café: Beyond the Craic (2015), by Martin Melhuish
- Soundtracks: "The Simian Line" & "Me & Isaac Newton".

Mairéid Sullivan is a singer, songwriter/poet, storyteller, recording artist, researcher, author, multimedia arts producer / project coordinator: a 'student of history' dedicated to learning and committed to cultural resilience through the arts, with primary focus on health and economic history, as curator for GlobalArtsCollective.org.

Mairéid grew up on a farm, on top of the hill at Lisheens, in the township of Bantry, West Cork, Ireland, the first of seven children, cared for by mother, grandmother and grand-aunt, all health practitioners, who encouraged 'good health' practice from early childhood. Father was an equestrian steeplechase trainer, a gifted 'Irish tenor' and a dancer.

Mairéid has been singing and dancing since childhood.
Her mother taught her the traditional songs.
Her father encouraged her to sing and dance.
Her audiences encouraged her to believe that she should sing.
All of this led to a very early belief that she is a singer before anything else in life.

She attended Kealkill National School (see her 'Letter from an Emigrant' on the school's 100th anniversary, 2009), until age twelve, when her family moved to San Francisco, where she discovered creative dance and went on to become choir soloist and assistant choir director, an avid reader, and a student of History and Philosophy.

At age twenty, Mairéid accompanied her father on a "27-day excursion" to Australia - and she stayed on, to be immersed in Melbourne's thriving music and theatre scene:
"With 'robust healthy girl' stamped on my immigration medical report, immediately being called on to 'sing sing sing' opened many doors for me - as a traditional unaccompanied singer."

Citizen of Ireland, USA, and Australia:
Australian tradition encourages exploration
After seven years of 'concert touring' and exploring Australia, Asia, Europe, and Ireland, Mairéid returned to Melbourne - and innovative roles across Melbourne's 'arts' networks.

Her ongoing work is dedicated to researching the gifts of traditional cultures, to pouring her wisdom and humor into blending the evocative feeling and beauty of ancient Celtic melodies with contemporary expressions of poetry and music.

In late 1991, Mairéid returned full-time to her musical vocation.
First Press Release: 1992
Discovering the profound wisdom in ancient Australian and Celtic cultural heritage became a source of inspiration: European Common Laws handed down across pre-Roman Empire cultures shared a traditional approach to dealing with wrong-doing; when a member of a community or tribe hurt or offended a member of another family/tribe, the family must 'sing them out' publicly until they make reparations.
"As a traditional Irish singer, the fact that Australian Aboriginal people also 'Sing them out' captured my attention. Wisdom found in ancient traditions inspired songs that helped me to deal with personal and universal issues in a way that gives me the most freedom for experimentation, personal expression and relationship to my audience."

Catching the Celtic Music Wave

Mairéid's first album, Dancer, 1994, produced by legendary Irish musician Donal Lunny, received highly favourable reviews in Australia, Ireland, and the US. It comprised fresh takes on traditional Irish songs as well as original compositions.

In February 1995, Mairéid travelled from Melbourne to Los Angeles to establish US distribution for her music, just as the World Music/Celtic music genre took off - catapulting her onto the stage across the USA and Canada.




Mairéid came to greater international prominence with the best-selling compilation album, Celtic Voices: Women of Song (1995), which featured three tracks from her Dancer album, remaining on Billboard’s "World Music Top 10" for nine months across 1995-1996. She also contributed numerous articles supporting the Celtic music revival for US newspapers and magazines.

A new musical collaboration began when Mairéid met Ben Kettlewell in May 1997.

From early 1999, Mairéid interviewed more than seventy women across the Celtic music genre. Thirty were featured in her book Celtic Women in Music: a Celebration of Beauty and Sovereignty (1999). It was very well received.

Selected Reviews:
e.g. Professor Frank Mills, Marylhurst University, Oregon, USA,
Editor of Brigit's Feast (Celtic Journal), March 2000
Excerpt:
... It's not just a few speaking from the heart. It's every woman interviewed. Mairéid has a way about her that creates a deep intimacy with those whom she converses. Mairéid and I have discussed this. While she might disagree with me, I think it is her unique sense of her own spirituality that brings this about. Mairéid is on what she calls a "personal mission:" A mission that has no fixed boundaries, no preconceived expectations, just a deep desire to fulfill her life's purpose, however that unfolds. The book is but one example of this. Her music, too, is indicative of this spiritual mission. Australian historian Gary Lewis' interview of Mairéid at the beginning of Celtic Women in Music brings out Mairéid's sense of mission and sets the pace for Mairéid's interviews. ... >>>more

Mairéid and Ben fell in love with filmmaking when they began filming 'nature' during concert tours, always allowing time to travel off the 'beaten track'.

In 2000, Mairéid and Ben traveled to Ireland to film interviews with fourteen of Ireland’s leading women musicians, exploring sources of the wide variety of cultural styles in Irish music, (Read her diary Filming in Ireland, and view selected short film clips on the YouTube Lyrebird Channel).

Riding the ‘Celtic wave’, Mairéid performed across the US and Canada for seven years from 1995-2001, before returning to Australia, with Ben, in 2002, where they immediately established their multimedia studio: Lyrebird Media – situated on the edge of the “green belt” in North Eastern Melbourne, where they compose and record music, enjoy producing, directing, and editing films - and gardening!

Mairéid became involved, from January 2006, in the campaign to protect the Hill of Tara, Ireland’s national cultural treasure and extensive archaeological site, from inappropriate development. That led her to found GlobalArtsCollective.org to encourage Irish people around the world to support the campaign to ‘Save Tara’.
That experience awakened Mairéid’s interest in economic history, with a special focus on Ireland’s late 1800s ‘reformative’ influence in America, Ireland, and Australia.

Mairéid continues her research on "Catastrophes as turning points in the arts”
and contributes to the Irish Diaspora as a singer, occasional speaker, writer, researcher, multimedia/filmmaker/editor.

Ideally, every human being should have a chance to thrive.
Mairéid Sullivan, 1995
Excerpt:
Why should it be otherwise? This approach to community is typical of ancient Celtic culture which upheld the view that each person is born an embryonic God or Goddess with a capacity to achieve 'godhood' on maturity and, in the fulfillment of this goal, has a filial duty to assist the wider community. Today, this is an officially acknowledged position on human rights and responsibilities:
Inshrined in International law through the United Nations, every nation and cultural community has a right to self-determination.
We are more people on the planet than ever before, part of a living, beautiful, passionate world. More people to hear inner voices of love calling out to kindred spirits - people who have not forgotten where we came from and with whom we go - all hand in hand - across space and time.

Throughout the 1980s, before returning full-time to her music career from late 1992, Maireid supported her daughter and three step-children, (and former husband, while undertaking his Ph.D.), via her arts marketing consultancy, Mairéid Sullivan Communications. All are graduates of Melbourne University.

During the 1980s, Melbourne celebrated "multiculturalism" with the revival of Marvellous Melbourne, slipstreaming on Cultural Tourism, (Craik, 1997) aka "cultural-economic activity" designed to attract international investment and up-market tourism by focusing on celebrating the performing and visual arts. inspired by post-industrial Seattle and Pennsylvania - and Glasgow!

Before Ireland rose from historical poverty on the international "Celtic music wave", Glasgow rose from post-industrial poverty to become European Capital of Culture, 1990, and their Director visited Melbourne City Council's Cultural Tourism Committee to show how focus on celebrating the Glasgow's illustrious arts and crafts history enlivened their community.

As Mairéid Sullivan Communications, Maireid contributed to Melbourne's "Cultural Tourism" initiatives: The consultancy undertook market research and established a state-wide Data Base as a foundation for development of ongoing promotion strategies, which required regular media interviews and public speaking engagements across Victoria. Mairéid published The Theatre City, a magazine format review of the Arts in Melbourne, with contributing editorial from leading figures in the Arts establishment.

Mairéid undertook comprehensive research in her role as conduit to the Arts and Tourism Industries, supporting City of Melbourne and Victorian Tourism Commission Cultural Tourism initiatives: Clients included individual artists, The Australian Ballet, Victoria State Opera, and many festivals, including five years with Spoleto Festival, as it evolved to become Melbourne International Festival of the Arts.

Mairéid expanded her initiatives across regional Victoria in 1986,
as Life Performance Tours Pty. Ltd.
When the Victoria State Opera lost funding for regional tours, Maireid was asked to speak to community arts advocates across regional centers, providing Group Booking discounts to individuals across the state.
The company was launched at the Victorian Art Centre by the Minister for Arts and Tourism, The Honourable Race Mathews; Mayor of Melbourne, Cr. Trevor Huggard; Director, Melbourne Tourism Authority, Susan Caldwell; Chairman, Victorian Tourism Commission, Bruce Hartnett; and Director of the Melbourne Theatre Company, Roger Hodgman. The launch was widely celebrated within the arts community and on the media, including coverage on Ch 9 television news, SBS News, the ABC 7:30 Report and headlining on page three of the AGE, followed by extensive ongoing media coverage in support of the initiatives of the enterprise.

Additional projects included:

• The City of Melbourne:  The brief of this consultancy included the design of submissions for promotional activities and management of ensuing promotional projects.
  
• Committee for Melbourne: Mairéid convened the Arts and Tourism forum, drawing together resources from leading Arts establishments to facilitate a broader outlook on marketing the Arts to tourism, and leading to guidelines for policies on Cultural Tourism.
• Cultural Tourism: Mairéid was the only non-government consultant on the City of Melbourne committee driving Cultural Tourism initiatives.

Principal clients:                                                    

• 1988-1992: Melbourne International Festival of the Arts, (formerly Spoleto)
• 1992: Melbourne Celtic Festival
• 1992: Port Fairy Folk Festival
• 1987-1991: Victoria State Opera
• 1989: International Festival of Opera’s AIDA
• 1990: Australian Ballet: Designed/managed Ballet Society's USA cultural itinerary.
  

Market Research & Development services:

• Special itinerary design and management of visiting international journalists, promoting Melbourne to International Tourism Markets on behalf of:
  • Melbourne Tourism Authority
  • Victorian Tourism Commission
• Co-ordination of regional bus routes linked to arts booking outlets       
• Co-ordination of regional Victoria Marketing Strategy
• Establishment of regional Victoria Marketing Data Base
  • Promotional Profile Development
  • Development of Promotional Material
  • Co-ordination of Publicity
  • Event and Project Management
  • Fundraising for special projects
    

Principal metropolitan Melbourne markets:

• Metropolitan Corporations, Social Clubs and Associations
• Tourism and Conference Markets - including:
  
  • Metropolitan & Regional Arts Councils
  • Regional Victorian cultural centres
  • Interstate and International Travel Agents,
  • Convention and Incentive Travel Organisers
  • Corporate social clubs

 Publicity and promotion networks: Regional Victoria

• 34 Regional Newspapers
• 17 Regional Radio Stations
• 4 Regional Television stations
• Regional cultural information and events coordinators; e.g.  
  • Arts Council Committees, Social Clubs, Education Centres
  • Direct contact with Arts Patrons through various societies.