The musical passport of recording artist and songwriter Ashley Davis offers a rich display of colorful stamps from Ireland and Scotland, but also heavily draws from the influences of her birthplace, the Kansas plains, and the country music traditions borne of the Appalachian Mountains. An internationally recognized recording artist and songwriter, Ashley has collaborated with such musical luminaries as the Chieftains' Paddy Moloney, fiddle player Eileen Ivers, harpist Cormac De Barra, singer-songwriters John Doyle and John Spillane, and the "First Lady of Celtic Music," Moya Brennan. Throughout her career, she has, to quote NBC's "Today Show" co-host Meredith Vieira, thrilled audiences with "new music springing from ancient roots." But in a greater sense, she has become a pioneer, navigating new frontiers and sharing her genre-defying musical vision with an ever-increasing fanbase. 


Cormac De Barra has pushed the boundaries of Irish harp beyond the traditional and classical through his collaborations with a variety of artists including actress and punk icon Hazel O’Connor, Grammy Award-winning Clannad and composer and singer Julie Feeney. He is well known tv personality. Cormac was born into a long line of Irish harpers. He started his studies on traditional Irish harp with his Grandmother in Dublin. He went on to study classical harp in the USA. Cormac has also found time to work in television for nearly two decades now. He presented the award-winning traditional music series Flosc on TG4 and hosted TG4’s flagship weekly arts show IMEALL, for three seasons. His theater performance credits include music for Playboy of the Western World at the Ambassador in Dublin, Tine Chnamh and Mallachtai Muintire at Project Arts Center, Mysteries 2000 at the SFX, Dublin and W.B. Yeats’ Cuchulain Clycle at the Riverside, London. He also made his acting debut alongside Hazel O’Connor in a show called O’Carolan’s Dream at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Born in Lawrence, Kansas, Ashley began performing live throughout the Midwest region at the age of 14. Four years later, she began her undergraduate study at Nashville's Belmont University, taking advantage of Belmont's renowned music program and studying literature from the Irish, British and Latin traditions, while also performing solo at many of Nashville's pubs and venues, including the legendary Bluebird Café. Pursuing a graduate degree from the Irish World Academy of Music & Dance (then known as the "World Music Centre") at the University of Limerick, Ashley then earned her Master's degree under the direction of Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin. In 2006, she journeyed to the Isle of Man, where she was an Artist in Residence, capturing and recording the native Manx language, as well as the melodies and stories of the island. Another of the singer-songwriter's unique musical adventures was a stint in Las Vegas, where she was chosen as the soloist for the Vegas premiere of Michael Flatley's "Lord of the Dance." Ashley spent one year with the show. In 2010, she was named one of the most influential Irish-Americans under the age of 40.