Berklee graduate brings the Big Fiddle to Limerick

Thanks to Nick Balkin of Berklee College, Boston, Mass., for the news that cellist Liz Davis Maxfield (left) from Orem, Utah, who graduated from Berklee earlier this month, is the first Berklee graduate to receive a Fulbright scholarship. She will take up the scholarship at the University of Limerick - where she will also be the first cellist accepted for the university's traditional music programme - and will be writing a book on using the cello to play Irish traditional music, both as a melody and a rhythm instrument.

More here, which is linked to a report in the Utah Daily Herald. Liz Maxfield has already brought out several CDs, the latest being Big fiddle (right), after an old Scots name for the cello.

Why is this news for the Bluegrass Ireland Blog? Well - apart from the significant visit to Ireland by Berklee last month, which is scheduled to be repeated next year - Liz Maxfield plays not only Celtic music but jazz, newgrass, and old-time; her recordings recall the work of Rushad Eggleston with Crooked Still and on the Compass album Fiddlers 4 (one of your editor's personal favourite CDs). A few years ago Katy Leonard was also at Limerick, writing a thesis on bluegrass in Ireland; and Katy is now on the staff of the IBMA. You never know how connections will turn out...