Biography
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Members
- Sean Breadin
Venereum Arvum are the husband & wife duo of Rachel McCarron and Sean Breadin focussing on the harmonious beauties of folk song & balladry from the English speaking traditions & beyond. No remit as such, other than to do what we do, by way of exploration, experience & celebration. Singing the old songs is like living in old houses, ever respectful to the builders, the previous occupants, and to those countless grubby hands that have polished the banisters; but there's no going back, even though we might rip out the additions of the sixties & seventies & brick up the open planning to get back to a more timeless idea of structure. Minimal on arrangements & instrumentation, concentrating on drones & modality, performed using a diversity of folk instruments such as Black Sea Fiddle, Indian Harmonium, Electronic Shruti Box, Appalachian Dulcimer, Hungarian Citera and Medieval Welsh Crwth, the music of Venereum Arvum is '…as historically timeless as it is vernacularly universal…'
Rachel has been singing all her life, with passions encompassing folk, country and classical, holding an impressive CV in all respects; a gifted instrumentalist on guitar, mountain dulcimer and piano she is just as likely to be found singing the ballad of Tam Lin as she is her own compositions or the songs of Laura Nyro. Sean is a seasoned traditional singer and storyteller specialising in a wide variety of weird and wonderful instruments, whose compositional work has been featured on Resonance FM and BBC Radio 3. As a duo they have contributed to a number of critically acclaimed CDs, including Angel High Wires (with Julie Tippetts, nee Driscoll), Infernal Proteus and John Barleycorn Reborn, and are currently working as part of The Woodbine and Ivy Band, a CD tribute to Shirley Collins's No Roses currently in the offing. Their fidelity to the tradition is matched by their ability as singers both individually and as a duo, where their almost telepathic rapport has often been remarked upon.
Equally at home on the concert stage or in a folk club, they maintain a purposefully low profile owing to a plethora of pressing commitments, but do surface at singarounds at The Beech in Chorlton-cum-Hardy (first Wednesday), The Cumberland Arms in Byker (first Saturday), The Steamer in Fleetwood (Thursdays) & manage to make it to the Holy of Holies at The Moorbrook Inn in Preston (Fridays) every fortnight or so.
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