Since 1994, Talisman has enlivened scores of festivals, concert halls, pubs, weddings, farmers markets, rallies, street fairs, parties, dinners and fundraisers with their percolating blend of Celtic-flavored tunes and songs. The band's hammered dulcimer, fiddle, flutes/whistles, guitar, and four voices give their music a rich, nuanced texture with solid rhythmic drive. Talisman's musicians sail their instruments across a 300 year reach of dance music and songs from the Celtic tradition, along with their own original music, often creatively weaving old tunes into modern songs. Indeed, Victory Review highlighted the strength of the band's imaginative arrangements on it's 1996 CD, 'Phoenix.' Talisman can be soothing, even hypnotic, but they also regularly turn listeners into dancers with expertly tackled jigs, polkas, and reels. Audiences are now enjoying Talisman's long-awaited second CD, 'Just Up the Hill,' released in 2004. It features their inspired arrangements and accomplished, good-humored playing on more than an hour's worth of uplifting tunes and songs. Talisman's music stirs the feet and gives the brain's pleasure receptors a warm nudge.
1) Behind the Haystack / the Blarney Pilgrim / Moon and Seven Stars
2) Munster Bank / Ballydesmond #3 / Church Street / Bill Sullivan's
3) Sandpoint
4) The Roseville Fair / Road to California
5) Foxhunter's / Boys of Ballysadare / the Butterfly
6) Tourner Á Trois
7) Star Above the Garter / Reverend Brother's / Out on the Ocean
8) Silver Falls Interlude
9) Banks of Inverness / St. Anne's Reel / on the Carpenter's Porch
10) The Moss Grows Thick / Morrison's Jig / Scollay's Reel
11) The Friendship Waltz
12) Andy de Jarlis / That Jig / Fair Jenny's
13) Flowers of Edinburgh / Green MT. Petronella / the Kitchen Girl
14) The Parting Glass