Creator/Teacher Bio:   Keltic Kids is designed, developed and taught by Laura James Flynn. Teacher: Eight years experience teaching music and movement to preschoolers and their caregivers in the Hamptons, Brooklyn and Manhattan. Laura previously devised music programs for The Center for the Arts in Sag Harbor, The Hampton Day School in Bridgehampton, The Hayground School, Bridgehampton and Amagansett Middle School, Amagansett. She teaches woodwinds privately. Original music composition: The Tempest (Darkhorse Productions, later used by The Storm Theatre Company), As You Like It (The Storm Theatre Company), and The Legend of Deirdre (East End Special Players). Keltic Kids material - much of the music and songs. Teaching Artist: With the Irish Arts Center’s theatrical program for children The Big Potato, which toured to schools in the New York area, and fed into the New York State Department of Education’s curriculum on the Great Irish Hunger. Actress: Credits include The Colleen Bawn, The Playboy of the Western World and Pigtown at the Irish Repertory Theatre, and Locating the Plant, and Portait, part one at the Irish Arts Center. Regional credits include Twelfth Night, Sylvia, DA, A Delicate Balance, The Last Night of Ballyhoo, Blithe Spirit and Working, the Musical among others. Laura has also appeared in several independent films. Education: BA and H. Dip. in Ed., both in Music and English at University College Dublin, Ireland before moving to the U.S.  Recorder, clarinet and music theory at the College of Music, Dublin for many years on scholarship.

Teacher Bio:   Colleen Raney has been an Irish Dancer and Musician since the age of 4.  The ninth in a family of 10 brothers and sisters, Colleen grew up in Seattle, Washington and moved to New York in the summer of 2005 to pursue acting.  After competing on a championship level, Colleen taught for the Tara Academy of Irish Dancing in Seattle for 6 years and continues her involvement from across the country.  Colleen appears as a vocalist with the world renowned Magical Strings and with various incarnations of the Irish band Rapparee.  She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Acting from the University of Washington’s Professional Actor Training Program and has appeared at the Seattle Children’s Theatre, ACT Theatre, The Village Theatre and Theater Schmeater.  She served for 3 years as the Director of Theatre and Film at Holy Names Academy.

Material Sources:   Keltic Kids material comes from many sources. It is taken from old Irish songs (lots of research has been done to find/select what is appropriate and engaging); old poems have been set to music; beautiful old airs have been made contemporary by having lyrics set to them; and some songs and chants have been adapted from their original form. Instrument play and dance is set to standard or new Irish music – jigs, reels, hornpipes, slip-jigs, and what have you! In addition to these, much of the material is ORIGINAL, created specifically for Keltic Kids by Laura James Flynn, the creator of Keltic Kids, using Irish themes and motifs… and not a small measure of mischief.