Latest News! Arcona's Forging Ahead! Our latest release is packed with 17 of our favorite and most popular instrumentals and songs, including the original Ride, Boys, Ride, penned by Blaise. There are featured vocal numbers for Brian, Phil, and Donna, driving instrumentals and beautiful melodies featuring Alanna, Claudia, and Bob, with Sparkie holding it all together with her bass lines. Order Forging Ahead now!!! The Arcona Reel Band is a hard hitting, raucous, witty group of musicians who put an American spin on traditional Celtic music. They have been performing for nearly 20 years at major events throughout the Northeast. In addition to strong vocal harmonies, featured instruments include the hammered dulcimer, fiddle, guitar, bouzouki, banjo, mandolin, upright bass, and bodhran. The band's music has been described as honest, their style as unique, and their performance as high energy. Many of the works Arcona performs are several hundred years old. The band has arranged these works into a new form they call American Celtic, blending over three hundred years of Celtic (primarily Irish and Scottish) tradition and style with contemporary interpretation from an American perspective, creating musical qualities that are fresh and exciting. Arcona's brand new release is Forging Ahead! This CD contains over an hour of music, with a wide range of styles, from driving instrumentals to moving slow tunes, from stirring ballads to funny story songs. Arcona at its best! Other Arcona recordings, available on CD and cassette tape, are Live at ABC, First Draught, American Celtic, and Then and Now. In 2005, we were thrilled to be selected to play again at the Bethlehem Musikfest, one of the great music festivals on the East Coast. We also returned to the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts in State College, another favorite venue. In 2004, we shared the stage of the Sunoco Theater of Whitaker Center with Dervish, one of the premier traditional Irish bands touring the US today. We also joined the Harrisburg Singers in a series of great concerts of chorale music, with ARB both accompanying the Singers and taking the lead. In September we shared the stage of the Carlisle Theater with our good friends Coyote Run from Williamsburg, VA - this was one of the truly memorable and most enjoyable concerts we've ever done! We wrapped up the year with another enjoyable Carlisle visit for First Night on New Year's Eve. In February 2002 Arcona shared the stage with the Susquehanna Chorale for a special Valentine's concert, at the Sunoco Theater of Whitaker Center in Harrisburg, PA. In 2001 Arcona was selected to play two informal showcases at the annual Northeast Regional Folk Alliance (NERFA) Conference, and were invited to play at the Belmont Stakes, the third leg of horse racing's famous Triple Crown. In 2000 they were honored to be one of only 20 performers (of more than 200 entries) selected to play a formal showcase for the NERFA Conference. In addition, they appeared in concert with internationally renowned Solas at the Sunoco Theater of Whitaker Center. In 1998 the Arcona Reel Band played a command performance for Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge and His Excellency Sean O'hUiginn, Irish Ambassador to the United States. They have been well received at the Bethlehem MusikFest, the Columbia Folk Festival, and the Bethlehem Chevrolet Celtic Classic. They have been regular performers at the Penn State Arts Festival, the Harrisburg ArtsFest, and the Long's Park Art Festival in Lancaster. They have been featured in concert in New York City, Atlantic City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Annapolis, Lancaster, Reading, and York, and have performed on numerous college campuses. They have enjoyed enormous success performing at the Great Lakes Medieval Faire and the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire. The band also enjoys a reputation as strong supporters of community projects, such as the Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts, the Harrisburg Civil War Museum, Civil War historical events in Gettysburg, and the Susquehanna Area Food Bank. Band members are (in order pictured above from left to right - top row) Brian Kahler (bodhran), Phil Hoskins-Helm (bones, effects, vocals), Bob Smith (guitar, banjo), (middle row) Sparkie Radcliffe (upright bass, mandolin), Alanna Berger (hammered dulcimer, concertina), Claudia Harrison Hall (fiddle), (bottom row) Blaise Liffick (guitar, octave mandolin, mandolin, pennywhistle), and Donna Hoskins-Helm (percussion, vocals), [Bios]