An Evening of Traditional Irish Music with Cara Wildman and Lexie Boatright and special guest Matt Mulqueen

Come hear music so full of life and spirit it will bring a tear to your eye one moment and draw you to kick up your heels to dance the next! 

Cara Wildman and Lexie Boatright are All-Ireland prize-winning musicians playing the Harp, Concertina, Fiddle, and Bodhran. 

Cara Wildman is a well-respected percussionist, pianist, dancer, and bodhrán player from Dorchester, TX. Cara’s talents have led her to perform in a variety of musical ensembles and genres around the world including in Puerto Rico, Argentina, Mexico, Ireland, Canada and across the United States. She has performed with Carolina Crown Drum & Bugle Corps, Celtic Thunder, The Irish Memory Orchestra, Joanie Madden (Cherish the Ladies), Oisín Mac Diarmada (Irish Christmas in America), Máiréad Nesbitt (Celtic Woman) and Donal Lunny. She earned her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Music Education from Texas Christian University, and a second Master's in Irish Traditional Music Performance from the University of Limerick in Ireland. Cara has studied with bodhrán greats Jim Higgins, Eamon Murray, Martin O'Neill, Cormac Byrne, Colm Murphy, Colm Phelan, and Junior Davey, among others.

Cara's playing has garnered international accolades including winning the 2016, 2018, and 2019 Senior Bodhrán Champion for the Limerick and Midwest Fleadhanna, and placing 1st at the 2021 All-Ireland Fleadh Fest—the first American ever to win this category. Donal Lunny described her playing as having "great taste...as an artist she can be immersed in her playing while retaining perspective on its contribution to the music. The development of the bodhrán is an exciting work in progress. I think Cara is at the front edge of this development..."

Alex Boatright is an award-winning multi-instrumentalist, performer, and teacher known for her effortless musicality and sensitive musicianship on Harp and Concertina. Alex is the Artistic Director of the Baltimore-Washington Academy of Irish Culture, a non-profit that she founded together with Fiddler Mitch Fanning, which provides children in the DMV area with a rich education in traditional Irish music as well as Irish language, dance, and history while connecting the students with free instrument access and financially equitable travel and learning opportunities.  Through the Academy, Alex is the director of the well loved youth performance group, The Bog Band, which performs widely in the DC-area festival circuit as well as the coach for many classes including BWAIC’s competition Grúpa Ceol and Ceili Band.

A multiple regional and All Ireland award winner herself, Alex’s private studio has consistently produced award winning students both at the national/regional and All-Ireland level.  Alex has worked to increase the accessibility and prevalence of Irish Harp and Concertina playing in America, from nurturing newcomers at all ages, to working to provide children with financially accessible instruments, to a student’s recent achievement as an artistic consultant for an original televised mini-series, bringing the visibility of the Concertina to a household platform.

Alex is a prominent advocate for equity in the field of traditional music, and in 2021 received an Irish Echo Arts and Culture Award for her work with FairPlé, an organization that “aims to achieve gender balance in the production, performance, promotion, and development of Irish traditional and folk music.”  

Alex has taught and performed at a number of top festivals and summer schools including Catskills Irish Arts Week, the Baltimore Trad Fest, and CCÉ MAD Week and is a sought after adjudicator for Fleadhanna and other regional music competitions. Her performance and teaching style is deeply influenced by her long-time teacher and mentor, Gráinne Hambly (Harp/Concertina) as well as from studying Concertina with Tim Collins and Mícheál Ó Raghallaigh. Her unique approach to bellows-driven Concertina fingering technique was shaped by her years studying Fiddle under NY Sligo Fiddlers Rose Flanagan and Brian Conway and mirrors their famous bowing style.  

Alex holds a Master of Music from the University of Maryland, where she studied Cello Performance with a concentration in String Pedagogy and Music Theory Pedagogy. She lives near Baltimore, MD where she hosts, together with Accordion player Sean McComiskey, both a weekly session and a beginners session entrance class known as TuneUp: The Session Club.

Matt Mulqueen  was born in Baltimore, Maryland, into a musical family. His older brothers played button accordion and fiddle, and his sister became a champion step-dancer. This environment instilled in Matt an irresistible desire to learn and play Irish traditional music. His first music instruction came in the second grade when he joined the boys choir at his elementary school. At age nine, Matt asked his parents if he could learn to play the piano. He began with group piano lessons at a local community college. From there, he progressed to private lessons in Irish and Classical music with Donna Long, who has been the greatest influence on Matt's playing. Listening to the host of traditional musicians who haunt Irish pubs and to innumerable recordings allowed Matt to forge his own compelling style of accompanying Irish music.