Eileen Ivers & Universal Roots

Eileen Ivers will change the way you think of the violin.

Grammy-winning and Emmy-nominated, Eileen Ivers continues to push traditional fiddling boundaries from a folk music staple to an intensely driving, powerfully beautiful world stage experience. In a career that has spanned more than 40 years, Ivers has performed and/or toured with such diverse artists as Sting, Patti Smith, Al Di Meola, Hall and Oates and The Chieftains.

She has guest starred with the London Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops, over 60 symphony orchestras to date, and was the groundbreaking musical star of Riverdance, a featured instrumentalist on Back to Titanic and film soundtracks including Gangs of New York.

She’s been called a “sensation” by Billboard magazine, “the Jimi Hendrix of the violin,” by The New York Times and “a virtuoso” by The Irish Times.

The daughter of Irish immigrants, Eileen was born and raised in the culturally diverse neighborhood of The Bronx, NYC. She is a 9-time All-Ireland fiddle champion, and one of the most awarded All-Ireland Fiddle and Banjo champions ever. Proclaimed “a national treasure” by the NCTA chair, she celebrates her renowned career as a performer, composer, producer, songwriter, band leader, educator, multi-instrumentalist and revered pioneer in connecting her American, Irish traditional, jazz, blues, and world roots.

Ivers graduated magna cum laude in Mathematics from Iona University, and in 2019, Iona University conferred upon Eileen Ivers the honorary degree of Doctor of Arts, for her “lifelong commitment to innovation, excellence and deep dedication to bringing people together through music.” Eileen currently serves on Iona’s Board of Trustees, and, as one of many projects, is further developing Iona’s performing arts curriculum. Eileen also helped establish Iona’s global campus in Westport, County Mayo Ireland in 2024… not far from where both of her parents were born.

“Scatter the Light” is Eileen’s most recent album release of predominantly original music. It follows her “Beyond the Bog Road” album with its extensively researched sixteen-page liner notes focus on the influences of the Celtic tradition on Roots music (bluegrass, French-Canadian, Cajun, Appalachian, Americana) and how Celtic music journeyed on to become a fundamental ingredient of the American Country music tradition. Irish Music Magazine called it “a triumph …a musical Magnus-Opus” and the album reached number one on the Alt-Country Roots Music Chart.

Eileen Ivers is one of America’s preeminent Irish fiddlers. Noted Pulitzer Prize winning author Frank McCourt sums up Ivers’s genius eloquently: “Eileen is to Irish music as Michael Flatley is to Irish dance—a pioneer, an innovator, a universalist. She grew up in boom-box Bronx and she carries sounds from childhood that are surely embedded in her musical soul…. Like Whitman she contains multitudes, and cannot be contained by Irish music itself.”

Eileen’s band, Universal Roots, connects music, cultures, stories and emotions that tie us together …celebrating the fact that we are more similar than different. Music truly is the universal language. The ensemble, with a broad array of instrumentation, features Colin Forhan (lead vocals, guitar, banjo, concertina), Buddy Connolly (button accordion, keyboards, vocals), Lindsey Horner (upright and electric bass, baritone sax, harmonicas, vocals), Dave Barckow (lead vocals, percussion, guitar), together with Eileen on fiddle, mandolin, banjo, bodhran, and live looping.