Commissions
Aoife O’Donovan
Long time friend and FreshGrass Festival performer Aoife O’Donovan is an American singer and Grammy award-winning songwriter. She is best known as the lead singer for the string band Crooked Still and she also co-founded the Grammy Award-winning female folk trio I'm with Her. She has released multiple critically acclaimed studio and live albums. She also spent a decade contributing to the radio variety shows Live from Here and A Prairie Home Companion. Her first professional engagement was singing lead for the folk group The Wayfaring Strangers.
Composition Commission
FreshGrass was proud to commission Aoife O’Donovan to write 3 original songs that helped complete her album, All My Friends, which were nominated for two 2025 Grammys in the categories of Best Folk Album and Best American Roots Song.
Part of the commission included Aoife performing these songs and others from All My Friends for chamber orchestra featuring The Westerlies, Brooklyn Youth Chorus (Dianne Berkun Menager, Artistic Director), Rob Burger, Alan Hampton, & Griffin Goldsmith, conducted by Eric Jacobsen at 2023 FreshGrass | North Adams.
In addition, an iteration of this commissioned work was performed at 2024 FreshGrass | Bentonville featuring Hawktail and the University of Arkansas Children’s Choir.
Learn more about this FreshGrass Commission in this short documentary!
FreshScores
Aoife O’Donovan was commissioned to produce and perform original music accompanying the silent film, As It Is in Life (D.W. Griffith, 1910), which debuted live at FreshGrass | North Adams!