CORK

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OVERVIEW Ken Cotter is an established singer and songwriter from Cork City. In September 2005 he will release his new CD ‘Agent Orange’, the follow up to his debut CD ‘Blue Letter Day’. This new collection of original songs has been produced by Ashley Keating from Cork band ‘The Frank and Walters’ and features some of Corks premier musical talent. Ken has been performing original songs for well over a decade and when he was based in England became a regular performer in such venues as The Twelve Bar Club in London and The Exchange Exeter. He has toured throughout the UK, Europe and beyond, playing as far away as Singapore, where he has played annually for the last 7 years. Ken has had numerous radio appearances, and recently appeared on the Swiss Italian-language television station RTSI. In March 2005, Ken was part of ‘The Islands of Song’ collaborative song writing and performing event. Ken was largely responsible for organising the Cork event (with St Patricks Festival Artistic Director Moray Bresnihan), which saw six Newfoundland songwriters visit Ireland to work and perform with some of Cork’s premier songwriters. In June 2005, the seven Cork songwriters travelled to St Johns, Newfoundland, where they played an intensive series of gigs culminating in a gala performance in the 1000-seater Arts and Culture Centre. Recent reviews of Ken’s new CD ‘Agent Orange’ has said that the album ‘sounds totally assured’ and ‘hits all the right buttons’. Ken’s performance style has been described as ‘confident and mature with an obvious originality’, while his music has been described as ‘plangently crafted fair’ by Time Out magazine in London. The same magazine declared that ‘singer-songwriter Cotter purveys a wonderfully assured brand of melodic songcraft’. Froots magazine said ‘Cotter does a neat line in contemporary minstrelsy’, while Ri Ra magazine stated that ‘..it is refreshing to hear thoughtful treatment of contemporary issues which form the basis for a lot of the lyrical content of the songs’. 2005 - Release of 'Agent Orange' album [September]