ArtistInfo

Jennifer Cutting's Ocean Orchestra

Band,
Folk

Jennifer Cutting Jennifer Cutting happily blends careers as a bandleader, composer, instrumentalist, ethnomusicologist, and record producer. Blending the formal training of her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in music with a passion for both traditional and electronic musics, she is one of few women bandleaders working in her genre. With her previous band The New St. George, her recent CD Ocean: Songs for the Night Sea Journey, and her new live band the Ocean Orchestra, Cutting has pushed the boundaries of “Celtic,” “Folk” and “Folk-Rock,” creating arrangements with sweeping orchestral sounds, shimmering ethereal electronics, authentic traditional instruments and a hard-hitting rhythm section. Cutting is a composer and bandleader by family tradition and a musician and ethnomusicologist by training. Cutting’s two grandfathers, one from England and the other from Ireland , were the inspiration for her natural synthesis of British and Irish musical traditions. Her English grandfather, Ernest Cutting, was a conductor and talent scout for NBC in the 1930s, directing orchestras for Kate Smith, Eddie Cantor, Jack Benny, Jimmy Durante, Fred Astaire, Rudy Vallee, and others. Following in his footsteps, she earned her Bachelor’s degree in orchestral and choral conducting. Her passion for folk music was developed through her association with British folk revival leader A.L. Lloyd. In the early 1980s she became Lloyd's last and youngest protégée, soaking up the same blend of scholarship and joy in performance that he had also imparted to members of Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span. After returning to the U.S. , Cutting spent more than ten years as director, composer, arranger and performer with The New St. George, one of the most significant British folk-rock groups on this side of the Atlantic . Following the retirement of that band, Cutting spent years composing, arranging, playing and producing the outstanding and award-winning CD OCEAN: Songs for the Night Sea Journey, collaborating with international superstars such as Maddy Prior and Peter Knight (Steeleye Span), Dave Mattacks (Fairport Convention) Tony Cuffe (Ossian) and Troy Donockley (Iona [UK]). Now Cutting is back leading a band, interpreting selections from OCEAN as well as newly composed and arranged material, with her group the OCEAN Orchestra. Cutting is a multiple award winner in all areas of her musical career. The New St. George earned her fifteen WAMMIE awards from the Washington Area Music Association. She won the 2003 WAMMIE for best contemporary folk instrumentalist. Most dramatically, she swept the 2004 WAMMIE awards, winning “Musician of the Year,” “Songwriter of the Year,” and “Best New Artist,” as well as “Album of the Year” and “Best Contemporary Folk Recording” for OCEAN. She has won two Maryland Governor’s Citations for composition, and prestigious national-level songwriting awards, such as First Prize in songwriting at the Merle Watson Festival, and American Songwriter Magazine’s Song of the Year. Cutting is head of SunSign, her own international production company, and has her own studio in Takoma Park, Maryland, just outside Washington DC. In the Quartet LISA MOSCATIELLO (vocals, guitar, whistle) has been involved in the Irish music scene in Washington, D.C. since the 1980s, and became lead singer for the traditional Irish trio Ceoltóirí (with Sue Richards and Karen Ashbrook). Lisa studied voice at Yale, and toured with their a-capella group Redhot and Blue. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, she was lead singer of Jennifer Cutting’s British folk-rock band The New St. George, which was signed to Folk Era Records and toured the U.S. and Canada. Later, she recorded and toured internationally with New-York-City-based Celtic fusion band Whirligig. Also a solo artist and songwriter, she has released solo albums Second Avenue and Trouble from the Start (which won her a Washington Area Music Award for “Album of the Year”); a live duo album with cellist Fred Lieder, What Happens After Love; and duo album Well Kept Secretswith fiddler Rosie Shipley. She has also appeared on all of Jennifer Cutting’s albums, including one by the New St. George and two by OCEAN. Billboard Magazine called her voice “one of the most gorgeous vocal instruments in all of folk-tinged pop.” STEPHEN WINICK (vocals, percussion) specializes in traditional ballads and sea chanteys, and is both a performer and an expert lecturer and teacher, bringing a scholarly depth to OCEAN’s concerts and educational programs. Steve has been singing traditional songs in English and French since his childhood. In the early 1990s, he spent several summers under the tutelage of the late Dublin ballad singer Frank Harte, one of the foremost traditional ballad singers in Irish music. Steve is a member of Ship’s Company Chanteymen, in which he performs a repertoire of sea chanteys and historical songs. He was engaged as an expert scholar and researcher for the 2008 Washington Christmas Revels, which presented the music of Québec. He ended up also performing one of the lead roles in the show, for which he sang traditional songs in French to an audience of thousands. He reprised his role on the 2010 CD release Le Temps des Fêtes, and in the same year appeared on OCEAN’s CD Song of Solstice. He has a Ph.D. in Folklore and Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied under song specialists Kenneth S. Goldstein and Roger Abrahams. He has taught courses in folklore and folksong at the University of Pennsylvania, George Washington University, and George Mason University. ANDREW DODDS (fiddle) is an award-winning Celtic fiddler from Springfield, Virginia. Specializing in the Scottish fiddle style, he also incorporates many other styles in his music. As a member of IONA, he toured nationally and internationally and won a WAMMIE for Best Traditional Folk Album, 2006 (A Celebration of 20). Andrew has won nearly every regional Scottish fiddle competition in the Mid-Atlantic, and placed 2nd in the U.S. National Scottish Fiddle Championship. Co-founder and Instructor of the George Mason University Celtic Music Ensemble, Andrew also teaches Classical, Irish, Scottish, and Old-Time fiddle at Del Ray Performing Arts Center in Alexandria, Virginia. In the Larger Orchestra RICO PETRUCCELLI (electric bass) is a D.C. native and a veteran musician, having performed with Mary Chapin Carpenter, Chuck Berry and Charlie Byrd, among others. Also an engineer, arranger, composer and producer, he engineered several classic area recordings, including Shearwater by Pete Kennedy, and composed many commercial jingles heard daily in the region. Rico played in Jennifer Cutting’s British folk-rock group The New St. George, and with Cutting co-produced their award-winning album High Tea. ROBBIE MAGRUDER (drums) recorded and toured the world with Mary Chapin Carpenter for many years, and also toured and recorded with guitarist extraordinaire Roy Buchanan. Robbie has also played with Lowen & Navarro, Ruthie and The Wranglers, The Hanson Brothers, the Usual Suspects, and many others TIM CAREY (Highland bagpipes) won first place in his first international competition in Toronto, Canada at the age of twelve. He won his first professional prize in 1971. His exposure to playing with the famed City of Toronto Pipe Band led him back to the States to play with the Denny and Dunipace Pipe Band, the band he first started playing with in 1966. He took over as pipe major of the band in 1982 through 1989 and stayed on with the band through its transition from being called The Scottish and Irish Imports Pipe Band to finally The City of Washington Pipe Band where he remains an active member. ZAN McLEOD (guitars, bouzouki, mandolin) is one of the best known guitar and bouzouki players in Irish music. In the 1980s he co-founded the Irish-American group Touchstone with Bothy Band alumnus Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill; the group recorded two award-winning albums for Green Linnet Records. His solo album Highland Soul earned great critical acclaim. Zan appears on many award-winning albums, and on several film soundtracks, including The Brothers McMullen, Ride with the Devil, and Far North.

Members

	Peter Knight vn
	Maddy Prior voc *1947 GB
	Dave Mattacks dr *1948 GB
	Steve Missal dr, voc
	Andy Hamburger dr, cym
	Marco Delmar g, voc US
	Gabriel Yacoub voc *1952 FR
	Zan McLeod g, eb US
	Troy Donockley voc *1964 GB
	Peter Wilson vn
	Sylvie Berger voc *1961 FR
	Tony Cuffe voc, g 1954-2001 US
	Sue Richards hrp US
	John Jennings eg 1953-2015 US
	Polly Bolton voc GB
	Rico Petruccelli b US
	Lisa Moscatiello voc US
	Grace Griffith voc US
	Anne Harrison voc
	Kim Miller vn
	Jennifer Cutting acc, p, org, key
	Blake Althen eg, sampler
	Dominick Murray g, voc
	Marcio Botelho vc
	Larry Kolota perc
	Eliot Davis vc
	Andrea Loewenwarter voc
	Lisa Ponton vl
	Theadocia Austen voc
	Steve Loecher dr
	Diane Weinroth voc
	Tatiana Sarbinska voc
	Karen Chittenden voc
	Christoper Noyes bvoc