Claudia Schwab is an award-winning originally Austrian fiddle player, singer and composer who lives and works in Ireland. Described as ‘one of the most creative artists on the Irish music scene today’ (Dr. Mel Mercier- Irish World Academy Limerick), Claudia amalgamates different traditions and styles, such as traditional Austrian, Irish, Classical Indian and Eastern European folk music, in her own, very unique way.
Growing up under the roof of her two fiddle- playing parents in a small town in Austria, music was a central and fundamental part of Claudia´s life from childhood on. At the tender age of three, she took up a three stringed fiddle and started to jam along with radio, LPs, orchestral music, and with her family.
At the age of five she finally received her first violin lesson from her mum. Soon after that she enrolled in piano, singing and recorder lessons at the music school next door.
Over the years she performed the roles of first violinist in the Jugendorchester Frohnleiten and the Joey‘s Ba- Rock Ensemble, leader of the second violins in the Schweizerorchester Frohnleiten and was involved with the music school’s vocal ensemble and various choirs.
Claudia Schwab · LIKE LISA – Live at the Model Arts Centre / SligoIn 2005, her love for Irish traditional music brought about an accidental emigration to Ireland: in her newly found home of Sligo, she was lucky to meet musicians like Rodney Lancashire and Paul McMahon, whom she learned tunes off and played sessions with for the following few years, becoming deeply immersed in the town’s vibrant Irish traditional music scene. Intending to stay for a year, Claudia was unable to part from the lands of jigs and reels, fireside sessions, laughs and good “craic” and still resides in the town of Sligo in the Wild West until the present day…
Source: The Harrison website