Our friend, Boston-based Shannon Heaton, specializes in Irish wooden flute and traditional Irish singing. She performs with Matt & Shannon Heaton, with her string quartet project and as a solist. Her instructional books, podcasts and videos and free audio tracks serve trad music aficionados. Her engaging performance style and her concert compositions for winds, strings, voice and piano make her a multi-faceted ambassador of traditional music for music lovers across genre lines. In recognition of her dedication to the tradition, Heaton received a 2016 Artist Fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. She chronicles her experiences on and off the road with her lifestyle blog, Leap Little Frog.

This April, she created 30 original tunes (WOW!!) and shared them for free!

Can you say IMPRESSIVE? or maybe INCREDIBLE?!

Here's one of my favorites:

Shannon notes, "A moment of making something is better than not making. And sometimes seizing small moments is just enough. This was my thought when I decided to record an original tune for every single day in April. I pledged to share recordings without fancy production or sophisticated arrangements--just good, clean, live recordings of each tune twice around. I wanted to be creative and share stuff; make sure to practice every day; connect with fellow tune writers; and maybe encourage someone else to record/write/share something."

Everything is on SoundCloud, and you can hear it all for free at:
    https://soundcloud.com/shannonheatonmusic

Shannon also compiled all the PDFs and mp3s for musicians and enthusiasts who like access to the music on their own devices/time. You can download the whole she-bang for just $6 at:
    http://shannonheatonmusic.com/music/30-original-tunes-for-april-pdf-mp3-package-download/

We have shared some of Shannon's music - and her study abroad experience in Thailand! Read on!

And thank you, Shannon, for this LOVELY, extraordinary month of music!