Lark Song Studios
The home of singer, performer & vocal coach Eileen Estes
Current Student Login
New Student Registration
Photo Credit: Jesse Winch
Celtic Corridor
The incredibly talented Celtic Corridor, featuring Joanna Clare, Laura Byrne, Eileen Estes, Donna Long and Billy McComiskey. Each member of the band is, in their own right, an outstanding member of the Mid-Atlantic Irish Music community and their union serves to elevate their craft to new heights!
Joanne Clare
Irish Fiddle & Violinist
Joanna Clare, is an acclaimed Irish fiddler and violinist and recently released her debut album, To Keep the Candle Burning. Joanna has won numerous awards for her talents as a fiddler and composer. She has performed at numerous venues and festivals including the Syracuse Irish Festival, the Rochester Irish Festival, the Maryland Irish Festival, the New York Trad Fest, the Maryland Folk Festival, and the Philadelphia Folk Festival as well as The James Joyce, Slainte, The Creative Alliance, and The Wine Collective in Baltimore. Joanna currently performs frequently and teaches Suzuki violin and Irish fiddle.
Celtic Corridor
Joanna Clare
Irish Fiddler and Violinist
Joanna Clare, who hails from Central New York, is a acclaimed Irish fiddler and violinist and recently released her debut album, To Keep the Candle Burning. It features multiple Irish musicians and a dancer who are all highly involved in the Mid-Atlantic Irish music scene. To Keep the Candle Burning is dedicated to the many traditional Irish musicians who inspired her throughout her childhood.
The album is comprised of traditional tunes she learned either directly from these musicians or from their recordings, as well as some newly composed tunes. Joanna has won numerous awards for her talents as a fiddler and as a composer (or tunesmith as she prefers to call herself). Most recently, she qualified to represent the United States in the 2022 All-Ireland Fleadh Cheoil in Mullingar, where she will be competing in the O18 Fiddle, O18 Fiddle Slow Airs, and Newly Composed Tunes competitions.
Joanna is soon to relocate back to Baltimore where she earned her degree in materials science and engineering from Johns Hopkins University. There she will help to keep the traditional Irish arts alive through performance and pedagogy.
Laura Byrne
Irish Traditional Flute & Whistle
Celtic Corridor
Laura Bryne
Irish Fiddle
Founder and Director of the Baltimore Irish Trad Fest, Laura Byrne is highly regarded on both sides of the Atlantic for her mastery of the Irish traditional flute and whistle. Laura began studying flute at age 9 in her native Vermont, continued her studies at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore where she earned Bachelor’s degrees in both flute performance and music education in 1995.
Though classically trained, she chose to devote her musical career to Irish traditional music, committing herself to the playing of the older generation of musicians through her many trips to Ireland and from close study of the emigrees to the United States. Laura has performed at countless festivals, ceilis and concerts in the U.S., Canada and Ireland including venues such as the Kennedy Center, Birchmere, several National Folk Festivals and the Catskills Irish Arts Week in East Durham, NY.
She performs frequently with Baltimore greats Billy McComiskey, Donna Long and Jim Eagan. Laura was featured on the Eva Cassidy remix album Wonderful World (2004). In 2014 Laura was a featured performer with the English choir Libera at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC which was released as a DVD recording and broadcast worldwide.
Laura has recorded two solo albums Tune for the Road (2005) and Lucky Day in (2010) which received great reviews, and were highly praised by Irish Music Magazine. She is a member of The Old Bay Ceili Band which released an album Crabs in the Skillet (2011). She released a duo recording with New York based fiddler Rose Flanagan Forget Me Not (2014). Laura is a two time grant recipient of the Maryland Traditions Master Apprentice award – as a ballad singer apprentice in 2007, and then in 2011 as a Master of flute, and received the Individual Artist award in performance from the Maryland State Arts Council in both 2010 and 2011.
Laura still performs occasionally, and works as a full time Realtor and co-owner of the Vesta Group of Long and Foster where she combines her non-musical passions of making things happen, central Maryland real estate, and helping others.
Donna Long
Piano & Irish Fiddle
Donna Long was born in Los Angeles, California. When she was five years old, she began taking piano lessons with her father, Byron Long, a jazz/classical pianist who instilled in Donna a love for music. As a child, Donna was exposed to many different genres of music, including players from the old and new Jazz eras, Classical, Scottish, Indian, and African.
Celtic Corridor
Donna Long
Piano & Irish Fiddle
Donna Long was born in Los Angeles, California. When she was five years old, she began taking piano lessons with her father, Byron Long, a jazz/classical pianist who instilled in Donna a love for music. As a child, Donna was exposed to many different genres of music, including players from the old and new Jazz eras, Classical, Scottish, Indian, and African.
In 1978, she moved to the Baltimore/Washington, DC area and heard fiddler, Brendan Mulvihill playing Irish music. He inspired her to pick up the fiddle and gave her a solid foundation in style and playing. She then began to accompany him on the piano and now is considered one of the finest pianists playing Irish music. Along with Brendan Mulvihill, she has recorded two duet albums, The Steeplechase and The Morning Dew.
Donna passed her music on to her son Jesse Smith and helped produce his first solo recording entitled The Hurricane. In addition to these recordings Donna can be heard as a guest artist on many recordings backing up other musicians and also on the motion picture soundtrack Out of Ireland. A former member of the internationally acclaimed Irish group Cherish the Ladies, she has recorded five CDs with them. In the year 2000, the Smithsonian Institution asked Donna to represent Irish Music in the series Piano Traditions celebrating 300 years of the piano.
Donna was also commissioned by the Library of Congress in 2001 to write a composition for fiddle and piano. She wrote a slow air called “Before the Snow Falls,” and a reel to accompany the air called “Pandora’s Box.” These tunes were performed by Cherish the Ladies and can be found in the Library of Congress. Donna currently teaches Suzuki piano, Irish piano, and Irish fiddle in the Baltimore/Washington, DC area. Her first solo CD, Handprints, was released in June 2003.
Billy McComiskey
Irish Accordion
Billy McComiskey, a Brooklyn native, plays in what he loosely describes as the East Galway Style of Irish accordion music. He is a protege of the late Sean McGlynn from Tynagh, Co. Galway. To this day he still plays Sean’s rare 1940’s vintage gray Paolo Soprani box.
Celtic Corridor
Billy McComiskey
Irish Accordion
Billy McComiskey, a Brooklyn native, plays in what he loosely describes as the East Galway Style of Irish accordion music. He is a protege of the late Sean McGlynn from Tynagh, Co. Galway. To this day he still plays Sean’s rare 1940’s vintage gray Paolo Soprani box. In the mid 1970’s, before moving to Baltimore, Billy helped to establish the still thriving Irish Music Scene in Washington DC. He moved to Baltimore in 1980 with his wife, Annie, and since that time, he’s helped put Irish Traditional Music on the map in Maryland.
Billy holds four All Ireland Championship titles, two (gold and silver medals) with Brendan Mulvihill for their superb duet playing, and two (silver and gold ) for his work as a soloist. Billy won the coveted All Ireland Championship for the Button Accordion in 1986. He is one of only two American box players to be so honored.
His friend and student John Nolan is the first American to win this award. Billy is the second. He is the recipient of the 2011 Irish Echoes Traditional artist of the year award, and has received one of the highest honors a traditional musician can be awarded: the 2016 NEA National Heritage Fellowship.
Billy is a composer of tunes, a good few of which are played in Ireland and America alike. He’s made quite a few recordings with some of the mightiest musicians playing Irish Music today, including the Irish Tradition, Trian, Green Fields of America, and the Pride of New York. He’s played and performed throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Ireland, England and Scotland.
Eileen Estes
Vocals & Guitar
Eileen Estes has thrilled audiences for years with her extraordinary voice, effortlessly combining vocal power with subtle emotional expressiveness. In addition to performing, Eileen is a studio musician and vocal coach. She is a faculty member of the Washington Conservatory of Music, is the vocal instructor for the Irish Music School of Chicago, and runs an online vocal studio for folk singers around the globe at Lark Song Studios.
Celtic Corridor
Eileen Estes
Vocals & Guitar
Eileen Estes has thrilled audiences for years with her extraordinary voice, effortlessly combining vocal power with subtle emotional expressiveness. In addition to performing, Eileen is a studio musician and vocal coach. She is a faculty member of the Washington Conservatory of Music, is the vocal instructor for the Irish Music School of Chicago, and runs an online vocal studio for folk singers around the globe at Lark Song Studios.
Additionally, the singer serves as one of the Directors of Irish Music Arts and Dance Week in Bethesda MD, is a former faculty member at Blue Ridge Irish Music School, where she is still a visiting instructor, and she travels to collect songs and teach Master Classes in the United States and abroad.
Eileen specializes in Celtic, Folk, and other contemporary genres and believes singers improve the most when they consider the whole body as and instrument; learning to trust their coordination and muscle memory. Eileen is happiest when she gets to explore topics such as resonance, repertoire, context, phrasing, ornamentation, and vocal health with singers of all ages and skill levels.
Daughter of Nita Conley (Korn), Celtic Thunder’s original lead singer, Eileen grew up immersed in the traditional music of Ireland and Scotland. She is a traditional singer as well as an arranger, songwriter and song collector who has collaborated with many bands over the years. Current Projects include Celtic Corridor (Billy McComiskey, Laura Burn, Donna Long, Joanna Clare) and The Good Folk (Agi Kovacs, Sophie Chang, Meghan Mette, Joanna Clare, and Patrick Winch).
In 2015, Nita and Eileen released an album of Irish and Scottish songs called The Apple Tree.
Eileen is a former faculty member at Blue Ridge Irish Music School, where she is still a visiting instructor, and Estes travels to teach Master Classes in the United States and abroad. She currently works as one of the directors of Irish Musical Arts and Dance Week in Bethesda MD, is a contributing artist for the Baltimore Washington Academy of Irish Culture and is the vocal instructor for the Irish Music School of Chicago. Estes also runs her own vocal studio, Lark Song Studios, where she works with singers around the world both remotely and in person.
Daughter of Nita (Conley) Korn, Celtic Thunder’s original lead singer, Eileen grew up immersed in the traditional music of Ireland and Scotland. She is a traditional singer as well as an arranger, songwriter and song collector who has collaborated with many bands over the years. In 2015, Nita and Eileen released an album of Irish and Scottish songs called The Apple Tree Project.