In September of 2016, six wildly diverse musicians came together unexpectedly within the walls of Boston’s New England Conservatory to form a new acoustic band, Night Tree. The group, all students at NEC, were named the Conservatory’s Wild Card Honors Ensemble for 2016–2017. Awards for this title included a sponsorship from NEC, a headlining performance at the historic Jordan Hall, and a year of working with Winifred Horan, fiddler and co-founder of Irish super-band SOLAS. Night Tree’s debut album was produced by Séamus Egan, another founding member of SOLAS. Their album was ranked in the top 15 of every category in the compilation by Richard Gillmann from FOLKDJ-L playlists based on 12,417 airplays from 127 different D.J. Their sophomore album will be released in fall 2018.

Though each member of American/Swedish Night Tree originates from a different musical world, the six members have come together to a create a new sound that is unique to their instrumentation and musical voice, both attracting and bewildering enthusiastic crowds while connecting folk music lovers, café radio junkies, jazz enthusiasts, free-improvisers, and beyond. Each artist’s personality is given a place to emerge and they have learned to get inside each other’s musical minds, creating one blossoming and unpredictable wave of sound.

As acoustic sextet Night Tree reaches their two-year anniversary, Brian O’Donovan, Senior DJ at Boston’s own radio station, WGBH, calls them “One of the most exciting roots-based music groups to emerge from the New England Conservatory in many years. Their individual chops and adventurous approach make Night Tree a band to watch for.”

. . .

Nora Tirrell is a 22-year-old pop/folk singer-songwriter from Marblehead, Mass. She is a recent graduate of Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she majored in Music Business and Songwriting. She currently lives in Boston and is teaching music along with gigging regularly.

Nora’s second music project, an acoustic EP called Middle of June, will be released in 2019. Her debut album, All These Words, is available now on Spotify and iTunes.

Photo by Yanan Aurora

• . . . One of the most exciting roots-based music groups to emerge from the New England Conservatory in many years. Their individual chops and adventurous approach make Night Tree a band to watch for. Brian O’Donovan, senior DJ at WGBH and host of A Celtic Sojourn
• Knotted together within the roots of Irish music and watered by a solid stream of formal conservatory training, Night Tree branches out with sonic inhibition as it nests within its musical boughs the influences of multiple genres from around the world. Much like sitting under a mighty oak on a warm summer night, this sextet both relaxes and fuels the spirit with songscapes that compel you to listen again and again. Susan Ritta, host of Thunder on the Plains, KZUM
• Once again, thank you, Night Tree, for coming to New World! Over the past 25 years, as I have photographed every festival, there have been some pretty fantastic moments — none more electrifying than when you took the Main Stage at noon this year and, tethers of the audience in hand, brought the entire house on an emotional, musical “Nantucket sleigh ride.” At the end of the journey, we were speechless. There was nothing to do but stand in spontaneous applause, dumbly acknowledging our collective debt of gratitude.
  Night Tree brings shockingly new idioms to the time burnished language and form of irish/celtic world music, at once honoring the the traditions and pushing their boundaries with infusions of fresh sound from parallel universes. Notes and rhythms of classical, klezmer, jazz from the world over are like fresh oxygen blown onto hot coal. It was a firestorm. Bob Eddy, The Herald Times, about Night Tree’s show at the main stage of New World Festival, Vermont
• . . .
• Most musicians can’t say they opened for American folk icon Livingston Taylor at a benefit show in their hometown. But most musicians aren’t Nora Tirrell. Marblehead Reporter

• Night Tree’s

• Website | Video | Interview

• Nora Tirrell’s

• Website | Video | Interview