Corned Beef Hash

They say that Irish immigrants got a taste for corned beef from New York’s kosher butchers, and a new culinary tradition was born.

In the same way, we want to put Irish, Scottish, Eastern European Jewish, and French Canadian dance music and songs into conversation with one another and see what arises. And the sum is greater than its parts. Rollicking bulgars and freylekhs roll into whirling polkas and reels; Yiddish songs of love and solidarity make space for bluegrass solos.

The klezmer music of Eastern European Jews started as a backdrop for wedding parties. Irish, Scottish, and French-Canadian fiddle tunes were also made for dances. We craft our shows to bring all that high-spirited energy into one swirling mass, and leave audiences with a smile on their face, a lightness in their feet, and a Yiddish chorus on their lips.

At appropriate shows, audiences might also be treated to a bit of good-natured, humorous, and educational banter and blarney about Celtic and Eastern European Jewish cultures, and the connections between them.

Corned Beef Hash is a trio of seasoned multi-genre, multi-instrumental musicians, with decades of experience bridging traditions and eras. As far as we know, we are the only band in the DC/Maryland/Virginia area—or even the Eastern USA, or even possibly the world—hitching itself to these varied cultural horses and seeing where they’ll take us.

Corned Beef Hash is:
Jacob Howley — guitar, vocals, mandolin, tenor banjo
David Coltun — fiddle
Nick Cameron — bodhrán, mandolin, vocals

In general, we require 3 chairs, 4 microphones (with stands and cables), and sound equipment with inputs for those microphones plus 2 additional 1/4" input cables (for instrument pickups).

We can supply our own setup, including a decent but relatively small speaker. We can also work with a venue's equipment, provided that it (combined with our own) meets the requirements above.

It's ideal to allow about 45 minutes for setup/sound-check and for tear-down after the show, but we can strive to work with any other timing parameters that you might have.