Winifred Horan

Horan was born in New York City[4] to Irish parents[5] and studied piano (taught by her father, a carpenter and musician)[6] and Irish fiddle playing at a young age.[7] She attended and graduated from the New England Conservatory[8] in Boston, Massachusetts, where she studied classical violin,[7][9] and the Aspen Music Festival and School in Aspen, Colorado.[5] She played with multiple orchestras, including the Boston Pops Orchestra, and string quartets, before joining the all-female Celtic music ensemble Cherish the Ladies in 1990.[7] She co-founded[2][10][11] Solas in 1994,[12] and is on fiddle and backing vocals.[8][13] On her participation in Solas and, in particular, touring with the group, Horan expressed in a 2008 interview: "Traveling the world with Solas has been one of the best things about being in the band."[12]

Outside of her work with Solas, Horan was a member of and toured with The Sharon Shannon Band,[8] and also performed with Irish singer-songwriter Pierce Turner.[7] She was "featured fiddler" on When Juniper Sleeps, a 1996 solo album by Séamus Egan, and co-writer of certain tracks for the 1995 film The Brothers McMullen.[7] She is also a nine-time champion Irish stepdancer and an All-Ireland fiddle champion,[14][15] having won an All-Ireland Junior Championship at age eleven.[7] In a December 2001 interview, Horan identified Liz Carroll, Egan, and Sharon Shannon as her top musical influences.[6]

Horan released her first solo album, Just One Wish, in October 2002 on Shanachie Records.[7][16] In 2006, she and fellow Solas member Mick McAuley, an accordionist, released Serenade on Compass Records,[17] with covers of "After the Gold Rush" by Neil Young and "Make You Feel My Love" by Bob Dylan.[18] Siobhán Long, writing for The Irish Times, listed Serenade as fifth on her list of top five Irish traditional music albums released in 2006.[17] Horan composed two of the album's tracks: "Little Mona Lisa" and "A Daisy in December",[19] which was featured during the third season of the American reality television competitive dance series So You Think You Can Dance.[20]

Horan lives in Dover, New Hampshire and is currently a member of the faculty of The New England Conservatory[21]

• Winifred Horan on Myspace
• Winifred Horan at AllMusic
• Horgan, Candace (December 2001). "Winifred Horan: Classical Fiddling; Interview with Winnie Horan". IrishFiddler.com (republished from Fiddler Magazine). Archived from the original on August 23, 2012.