Isaac Alderson

Isaac Alderson grew up in Chicago listening to his father play blues and jazz. At the age of 12, he discovered Irish traditional music and began obsessively practicing the uilleann pipes, learning from such players as Al Purcell, Patrick Cannady, Kieran O’Hare, and many others. At 14, he began to study the flute and whistle with Laurence Nugent from Co. Fermanagh.

Many trips to Ireland over subsequent years helped to fan the flames of his enthusiasm for the music and gave him the opportunity to study and play with many outstanding musicians. At 18, Isaac moved to New York in order to attend college and dive into the city’s phenomenal Irish music scene. In 2002, Isaac won the All-Ireland Senior Championships on all three of his main instruments. After finishing college, Isaac toured for two years with Eileen Ivers as part of her band, Immigrant Soul, and afterwards with such diverse groups as Jameson’s Revenge, Runa, Millish, and many others, and also played extensively around New York with fiddler Gráinne Murphy and guitarist Alan Murray.

Isaac is currently on the road full-time across the US and Canada with the touring company of the hit Broadway musical, Come From Away. He is also still active with The Yanks, Irish bar band The Bronx Boys (with Dan Lowery, flute/whistle fundamentals instructor), and the chamber folk group Ensemble Galilei. Past touring engagements have included several years of membership in the international supergroup Comas, Irish-based music and dance show Celtic Crossroads, and Riverdance. He has toured in the US, Canada, Ireland, Columbia, much of western Europe, and China.