Ireland’s National Treasure to perform at UMPI

    PRESQUE ISLE — Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, Robbie O’Connell will be making an appearance in the University of Maine at Presque Isle’s Wieden Auditorium on Sunday, March 14, at 2 p.m.
    Ireland’s top music magazine, Hot Press, has called O’Connell “a national treasure” and “a man blessed with an enviable turn of phrase and a gift for melody bestowed on only the few.”     O’Connell’s performance at UMPI will include traditional Irish songs and stories.
    O’Connell was born in Waterford, Ireland, and grew up in Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary, where his parents had a small hotel, according to his Web site. He began to play guitar and sing when he was 13 and soon became a regular performer at the hotel’s weekly folk concerts. He spent a year touring the folk clubs in England before enrolling at University College Dublin where he studied literature and philosophy. During school vacations, he worked as an Irish entertainer in the U.S.A.
    O’Connell has recorded 14 albums for such labels as RCA, Vanguard and Green Linnet and has performed on an additional seven compilation albums. Winner of the Boston Music Award as Outstanding Celtic Act, he has appeared at almost every major venue in the U.S., from New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center to the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles.
    Tickets for the show are $10 for adults, $2 for students and free for UMPI, NMCC and SAGE students with proper ID. For more information about this concert, contact Carol Ayoob, UMPI director of cultural affairs, at 768-9462 or carol.ayoob@umpi.edu. For more information about Robbie O’Connell, visit his Web site at www.robbieoconnell.com.