Biography
HEALING CELTIC MUSIC THAT’S REAL
From haunting Celtic lullabies, through songs of intense grief and pain, to strains of healing and hope, Caera's music always contains an authenticity that can be hard to find in today's music, or even in today's world in general. Beautiful, powerful soprano vocals blend with the bell-like tones of her brass-strung Gaelic harp to create music that carries people through emotional, physical, and spiritual realms.
While it may seem surprising for a harper, Caera was not born to economic or cultural privilege. Born in Boston and raised by Irish-American parents who did not support learning about their native culture, she grew up in a heritage of child abuse, poverty, alcoholism, sexual assault, and homelessness. She credits music and spirituality with keeping her from becoming a statistic: “As I was growing up, singing, music, dreaming, and dancing really held me together. They comprise the fabric of my being, and I would turn to them where I saw others in similar situations turn to drugs, alcohol, sex, or violence.”
Caera was thrown out by her abusive father at the age of 17. While crashing with another homeless teenager that summer, she had her first exposure to the Irish language through Enya’s music. “When I first heard the language, something just woke up from deep inside me. The Irish language has words for things that have always been important to me, like different dream states, or categories of music based on their effect on the listener. The language is this tangible key to a depth of wisdom we used to have access to; it showed me that I came from a people who were capable of so much more than what I’d been raised with.”
She has since learned the language well enough to have native speakers mistake her for one of their own. She also took an interest in the medieval Gaelic harp, played with the fingernails on brass strings, making bell-like tones very different from the soft sound of most modern harps, which are strung with nylon. This is now the instrument she uses to accompany her singing, songwriting, and interpretation of medieval and traditional songs.
Her major musical influences may look like a very eclectic mix, at first. She is strongly influenced by the spiritually emotive music of Enya and Clannad, while also modeling her writing after the daring yet understated styles of Tori Amos and Suzanne Vega. Two of her biggest heroes are successful independent musicians: “Celtic eclectic” harper and singer Loreena McKennitt, and powerhouse songwriter Ani DiFranco.
Caera has released five albums in five years, and accomplished much during that time. She has performed and sold CD’s throughout the U.S., Canada, and parts of Europe. She has won at least 9 gold medals for Gaelic singing, poetry, and harp playing at various Feisean (Gaelic competitions). Several publications, including “The Boston Globe” and Canada’s “Celtic Heritage” magazine, have run feature articles about Caera and her music. And her biggest accomplishment to date is to have been on two official ballots for the 2008 Grammy awards.
Caera has recently relocated from Boston to the San Francisco bay area, bringing with her hints of Ireland, and of the Celtic Otherworlds, too. She hopes to continue with the success she has already achieved, and to grow her audience on the west coast and across the globe. She also hopes to get her songs placed in film and television soundtracks.
Caera is very passionate about the music, languages, history, and spirituality of her Celtic ancestors, but at the same time she is very concerned with the real struggles of real people in today’s world. She may write and sing about timeless goddesses and fairies or modern women and children with the same passion and intensity. Her music is imbued with Celtic mysticism but it also stays real. Caera’s voice is never heavily reverbed, chorused, or otherwise electronically enhanced, in order to keep the feel of a real person singing to you directly, rather than some distant, removed voice in a cave or tunnel just visiting from somewhere far away.
Whether through spiritual dreamworlds or through the day to day struggles of the world we all share, this music can augment your journeys with sweetness and strength.
For more information and free samples of songs, check out www.caera.info and www.myspace.com/IrishHarper , or search for "Caera" on Facebook.
For bookings and more information, call 831-332-7609 or email caerasinger@gmail.com .
Instrumentation
Caera -- voice and clairseach
Discography
Caniadau -- Mor Gwyddelig EP, 2002
Go Raibh Maith Agat -- Caera EP, 2003
Wake the Dragon -- Mor Gwyddelig album, 2004
Through Misty Air -- Caera album, 2004
Traditional Irish Gaelic Children's Songs -- Caera book and CD set, 2006
Suantraighe: A Collection of Celtic Lullabies -- Caera album, 2006
Eist le mo Sceal (Listen to my Story) -- Caera album, 2006
Links
| http://www.caera.info |