About David James and Kim Hoffmann
David James, 2002 (three-time) All-Ireland Champion, is the first American ever to win solo All-Ireland Championships on the hammered dulcimer, at the Fleadh Cheoil na hƒireann, Sligo in 1989 and then Listowel, in Ireland, in 1995 and 2002. He was featured in the official Fleadh 1995 video. He was the U.S. National Hammered Dulcimer Champion in 1986. He also plays fiddle, bouzouki, guitar, banjo, concertina, sings, and writes songs. He has taught Irish dulcimer in workshops and master classes from coast to coast, the first to pioneer many unique techniques on that instrument. In 1989 he was awarded a Master Folk Artist Fellowship by the Indiana Arts Commission. DavidÕs latest album CD, entitled The Lone ManÕs Path, was released June 2002, featuring 11 tunes (three of which are his own compositions) and 7 songs (3 of his own), with David on vocal, hammered dulcimer, fiddle, keyboards, bouzouki, guitar and accordeon, joined by Kim Hoffmann on vocals, bodhr‡n and whistle, Ethan James and Dan Broder on guitars.. He teaches fiddle, dulcimer, bodhr‡n (Irish drum) and whistle at World Folk Music Company on 103rd Street in Chicago, and at St. PatrickÕs Celtic Center in South Bend, Indiana, where he also makes his home.
Kim Hoffmann plays tin whistle, bodhr‡n, guitar, fiddle, and
sings. Kim is the 1998 Midwest Fleadh Cheoil champion on the tin whistle, and a
former first place winner in Singing in English, Slow Airs, Trio and Bodhr‡n
competitions. Kim was a finalist in 1995 in Ireland at the All-Ireland
Championships in the Tin Whistle, Tin Whistle Slow Airs, and the WomenÕs
singing categories. She was a finalist in the 2002 Listowel (Ireland) Fleadh
Cheoil in WomenÕs
Singing and on piano with the Chicago Ceili Band. She teaches workshops at
festival events on tin whistle and bodhr‡n. Kim is also an award-winning visual
artist, and lives in South Bend, Indiana. She was among five persons nominated
for 1993 Woman of the Year in the Arts by the South Bend YWCA. She was an
Indiana Arts Commission Individual Artist Grant winner in 2000.
Kim and David bring together an amazing variety of instrumental and vocal talent, and
have ÒsessionedÓ and performed together for over fifteen years. They have appeared
at parks, clubs, coffee houses and festival events all over the Midwest; for
the Lansing, Kalamazoo and Grand River, Michigan, folk arts associations. St.
XavierÕs Irish Fest, for Irish-American Ceili dances in Chicago and the Quad
Cities, at the Winfield, Kansas Walnut Valley Festival, the Indianapolis Irish Fest, and on campus at the University of
Notre Dame home games, in many night clubs in Chicago, the Irish-American
Heritage Center and Gaelic Park, and with the Tunes of Erin Ceili Band for four seasons at the
Milwaukee Irish Fest
and at the Chicago Irish Fest.
Mursheen Durkin/Martin OÕConnorÕs Ð Kim: vocals, guitar, David: vocals, dulcimer, Rick Willey: lead vocals, fiddle, Ð a rollicking Irish
polka-beat song and tune, recorded at Front Porch Music, Valparaiso, Indiana
Lambs in the Green Hills Ð Kim:
vocals, David: dulcimer, Rick Willey: fiddle Ð a beautiful slow air on a classic theme
of Òcourting too slowÓ
