Irish Trad Session with The Caitlin Warbelow and Chris Ranney Duo

Caitlin Warbelow hails from a family of entrepreneurs and bush pilots in Alaska and for the last seven years served as the violinist/fiddler in the original Broadway cast of the Tony Award-winning and Grammy Award-nominated musical, Come From Away. (When Come From Away closed in late 2022, it was the 40th longest-running musical in Broadway history, and the longest running musical featuring a fiddler.) Caitlin holds degrees from Columbia University (M.S., Urban Planning) and Boston University (B.A., Anthropology and B.Mus., Violin Performance), and, oddly, once turned down a PhD in Epidemiology at NYU. Though she’s made her career as a musician, that was a bit of a fluke. She originally planned to be a scientist, and has never quite managed to retrain her brain to be anything else.Caitlin is the co-founder of Tune Supply, a beloved online traditional music platform launched 36 hours after Broadway shut down due to Covid in order to keep trad musicians working during the pandemic. She serves on the faculty at Manhattan’s Irish Arts Center, and is the artistic coordinator for the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival’s Celtic program. Caitlin holds honors from the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts and the National Suzuki Conference, and is a regular faculty member at the Swannanoa Gathering, the Arcadia Festival of Traditional Music and Dance, the O’Flaherty Irish Music Retreat, the Gulf Coast Cruinniu, and the Far North Fiddle Festival, among others. An All-Ireland winner and New England Fiddle Champion, Caitlin also maintains a large private teaching studio online and in Manhattan. When not on Broadway, Caitlin performs and tours as a solo artist and with numerous ensembles, including Grammy Award-nominated Cherish the Ladies, Riverdance’s Heartbeat of Home, Sting’s Broadway musical "The Last Ship", The Alt, Mick Moloney and the Green Fields of America, Michael Londra & Celtic Fire, Trinity Dance Company, and the Cathie Ryan Band, among many others. She founded the new trad ensemble Warbelow Range with Kyle Sanna, Alan Murray, and Dan Lowery and co-produced their first self-titled album. Her live album of Irish trad in Manhattan pubs, Manhattan Island Sessions, was nominated for an Independent Music Award. Caitlin’s versatility and expertise lies not only in music, but also business/entrepreneurship, Alaska tourism, science, research, data analysis, writing, community organizing, connecting disparate dots, and various flavors of activism. She is particularly interested in waste-to-energy systems in rural Alaskan contexts, and particularly uninterested in anything having to do with marketing. When not traveling the world in search of herself, she resides in lower Manhattan with her partner and their toothless black house panther, Toast.

Chris Ranney grew up in the state of Washington and has studied piano since age six.  His skills as a pianist, musical director, and conductor have led him to perform on stages all over the United States, including seven years as the Associate Conductor and Musical Director of the Tony Award-winning and Grammy Award-nominated Broadway musical “Come From Away” in New York City. Chris has worked extensively in his home state of Washington, acting as musical director and pianist for many productions at Seattle’s acclaimed 5th Avenue Theatre, Village Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, and in California at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley. Chris’s work has been heard as far away as Shanghai, when he acted as Musical Supervisor and Arranger for “Next Stop Broadway”, a musical review tour of major venues in China. He also performs frequently in New York and California with Tony Award-nominated actress Jenn Colella, and serves as her music director and pianist.Chris’s career as a traditional musician began in 2016, when he picked up the button accordion while on tour with “Come From Away”. He can now be heard playing at Irish sessions around New York. During the COVID-19 pandemic he co-founded Tune Supply, an online traditional music platform, along with his partner, violinist and fiddler Caitlin Warbelow. Chris has developed a unique piano accompaniment style for Irish music that draws on his extensive experience with various contemporary styles combined with an ear for traditional melody and chord structure. He has performed at festivals around the US, including the O’Flaherty Irish Music Retreat, the Alaska Folk Festival, and the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival, among others. Chris holds degrees in Performing Arts Technology and Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan.