Workshop: Exploring the Art of Practice

Liz Knowles began her professional career as the fiddler for Riverdance in the 1990s, and as soloist on the soundtrack for the film Michael Collins. Liz has also appeared as soloist at the Kennedy Center, in The Pirate Queen on Broadway, with the New York Pops at Carnegie Hall, and on tour with Don Henley. In collaborative settings, she currently performs with the Martin Hayes Quartet, all-female fiddle supergroup String Sisters, and her trio, Open the Door for Three. 

In addition to live performance, her career includes arranging, composing, recording, producing, and musical direction for the stage. Her compositions and arrangements of tunes and songs have been recorded and performed by John Whelan, Flook, Chicago’s Metropolis Symphony Orchestra, Liz Carroll, Beolach, J.P. Cormier, Bachue, John Doyle, Ensemble Galilei and Martin Hayes, among many others. 

Liz is a highly sought-after educator, currently on the faculty of the department of contemporary improvisation at New England Conservatory in Boston. She also conducts her own private studio and is a regular teacher at many music festivals and workshops across the US and in Ireland. Most recently, Liz created an hour-long audio journal in words and music about the experiences of musicians during the pandemic, published in a special issue of Critical Studies in Improvisation (University of Guelph, Canada). 

Liz is a co-founder of the Sustainable Touring Arts Coalition (STAC), which aims to support environmental sustainability in the music industry. She is taking advantage of the pause in tour-related travel during the pandemic to finish work on two ongoing book projects.