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O'Brien Family Band, Cowboy Music - Fiddles -Yodelers
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The O'Brien Family Band was formed officially in October of 2000. The family
hosted a weekly "Open Mic" night at the Common Ground
coffee shop in Kitterage, Colorado for close to one year until moving to
the Local Grind coffee shop in Bergen Park, Colorado. In December
of 2001, they began, playing professionally at nursing homes, civic
organizations, schools, festivals,stores and restaurants.
DAN was born and raised in Monterey, Colorado and attended UNC in Greeley, After
a 29 year career, Dan retired from public education in May of 2002.
All 29 years were spent in Jefferson County Public Schools; nearly
20 of those years were spent working with with deaf, hard-of-hearing
and other disabled students at the Warren Vocational-Technical school in Lakewood
Dan began playing the guitar in high school and enjoyed bluegrass
and old-time music from the start. Dan and family frequent numerous
music festivals and contests and plan to continue. He backs Maura
and Kyle in fiddle contests and enters male vocal, song-writing
and mandolin contests himself, taking many honors. Dan was a winner
in the Song-writing contest in Ainsworth in August.
JANETTE was born and raised in Colorado. She is a certified elementary teacher,
now homeschooling Kyle and Maura. She is the founder of the group,
The Mountain Area. After watching how easily her children became
proficient on the fiddle, she look up the bass and has played a
Taylor accoustic-electric for over two years.
KYLE is twelve years old and has always been homeschooled, having asked his mother
to be his teacher when he was two and a half. Kyle's interest in
music has been fostered by his parents since he was small. After
seeing a fiddle contest when he seven, Kyle declared that he was
going to play and asked for a fiddle for Christmas. In addition
to fiddle, Kyle plays acoustic and electric guitars, mandolin and
is learning the five-string banjo.
MAURA is nine years old She began to play the fiddle at five, developing a keen
interest from watching her brother Kyle. In the 2001 Colorado Open
Fiddle Championshlp, Maura won the "Small Fry" division,
Maura enjoys Patsy Cline songs and with her family has played regularly
at coffee shops in Evergreen, Colorado as well as nursing homes,
schools, and festivals.
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