Nico is 51 and has 2 daughters, Rosie and Marie, and a granddaughter Bess. He has one older brother and two younger sisters. At school they had Ivor Cutler once a week. He went on Forest School Camps where he liked singing and playing the mouth organ and guitar around fires with friends. He worked on a fishing boat and an adventure playground and drove a coffee van. He went to France, got married to Fan and lived in Suffolk where they performed puppet shows on Southwold beach with Meg Amsden. At Norwich university, studying French, he met Andrew Dickson who showed him how to be a musician in theatre. He played Andrew's music in wild and brilliant shows for children and on a Mike Leigh film, 'High Hopes'. The family moved to Bray, Co. Wicklow, Ireland in 1990. Nico worked for theatre companies, schools, hospitals, colleges, on television and for recordings. When the Ark opened in Dublin in 1995 Martin Drury asked him to be musician-in-residence. They worked together on many shows. In 2000 Nico Fan and Marie travelled around the world. Now their home is in Adrigole, Co. Cork. Nico regularly runs music workshops for The National Concert Hall. Click here to download Nico's biography (pdf)       Martin is actually a large sort of small god or deity who appears on earth at intervals of probably thousands of years. Luckily in this incarnation he has fused his immortal soul to Bertha, his double bass. He and Nico and Kate all met recording film music for Andrew Dickson. Martin nearly flew fighter jets, and trained as a blacksmith. He rode to Australia on a bicycle once and nearly didn't come back, because he loves the sun, the beer and the way sheilas walk. He has made several albums of his own music. He and his partner Dee have four children between them, Tiggy, Diarmuid, Lughaidh and Rosie. Dee plays fiddle with Kíla. Click here to download Martin's biography (pdf)       Kate is a fairy living on a farm in Kilkenny. She and James have a son, Teige, and he, their dog Hatty and their neighbour Abbey all sing on the CD. Kate and James are always making amazing things together. They have goats, and used to have cows, and now have a lot of vegetables, flowers, fruit and trees instead. Kate plays in the Kilkenny Orchestra and teaches violin in schools. She made Martin a full length shocking pink fur coat that he played at Glastonbury in. Teige has a big barrel of musical instruments and learns the violin with Kate.     Martin and Nico tour to many little schools up country lanes all over Ireland. They play at festivals and on recordings together and last Christmas went to Melbourne, Australia to play at ArtPlay. It's a huge bright empty space for children to make brilliant things in without being told what to do, and outside there's a safe playground to do what you like on. So if you can go there, do.