Art Ceilidh
The ART CEILIDH group was founded in 1998 by Mikhael Smirnov (a vocal, an accordion) and Sergey Klevenskim (ethnic wind instruments), participants of the famous Ivan Smirnov's Quartet. The music of ART CEILIDH incorporates influences considered "Celtic" and unites in itself the folk traditions of the western and eastern Europe together with the author's compositions; it immediately drew attention of the admirers of the world music. The group name speaks by itself: the spirit of tradition - the Ceilidh.
At the beginning ART CEILIDH based their repertoire mainly on the Celtic tradition, but eventually moved apart from the musical framework in attempt to give their music new and interesting scent. The repertoire of ART CEILIDH combines the diverse folklore intonations from ethnic to jazz, thus forming the group's own recognizable style. Unlike many groups of a similar formation ART CEILIDH mainly has author's compositions in the repertoire, and that is certainly an advantage; these compositions are written by the constant participants of the project, Mikhael Smirnov and Sergei Klevensky.
For the first time abroad ART CEILIDH, together with Ivan Smirnov, the best acoustic Russian guitarist, have presented the program named "At the other end of the world" at the Edinburgh festival Fringe'99 in Scotland and it was a real success. As a result came the Collection of Celtic music, an album CELTOMANIA, produced by Mikhael Smirnov, label SKETIS, in the frame of a project "All Tribes".
In 2001 a bass guitarist Alexei Raspopov, then an art director of the Moscow club Vermel, has joined a duet, and Art Ceildh, finally having found the sounding, became the constant participant of ethnic and folk-rock festivals.
At various times in ART CEILIDH participated Dimitry Sevastyanov and Boris Lifshits (drums), Andrey Zvonkov and Nikolay Sarabjanov (guitar), Anton Revnjuk and Peter Dolsky (bass guitar), and also, during the period with 2000 for 2003 the vocalist of group was a Gipsy singer Ljubov Erdenko. The first album of ART CEILIDH came in 2006, "Ceilidoscope. Being European", in fact it was a summit of the last years. Then the sudden tragic death of Alexey Raspopov stopped the activity of the group. Only in 2010 the musicians decided to go on and started the recording of the second album.
Present participants of the ART CEILIDH:
Mikhael Smirnov - a keyboard, an accordion, percussion, a vocal.
Sergey Klevensky - a clarinet, whistles, bagpipes, other ethnic wind instruments, a vocal
Leonid Gusev - drums
Vadim Bedov - an acoustic guitar
Alexander Sharashenidze - an electroguitar
Ivan Dorokhov - a bass guitar
