RUNA members (from left) Cheryl Prashkar, Maggie Estes, Shannon Lambert-Ryan, Dave Curley and Fionan de Barra will play Pastorius Park next week.

by Carole Verona

Combine Irish and Scottish traditional music with a pinch of Americana and bluegrass and you’ll come away with RUNA. This award-winning Celtic band will close out the 2016 free Pastorius Park concert series at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, July 27.

RUNA consists of vocalist and step-dancer Shannon Lambert-Ryan and her husband, Dublin-born guitarist Fionán de Barra; Cheryl Prashker, a Mt. Airy resident, on percussion; Dave Curley, from Galway, now based in Chicago, on mandolin, vocals, bodhrán and step-dancing; and Maggie Estes, originally from Kentucky, now based in Nashville, on the fiddle.

The band was named Top Group and Top Traditional Group at the 2013 Irish Music Awards and Best World/Traditional Song at the 2013 Independent Music Awards.

RUNA means mystery or secret lore.

“We’re all from very different geographical and musical backgrounds, and we try to incorporate all of that into our music,” Lambert-Ryan said. “We start with traditional older songs and tunes and then we try to contemporize them a bit. Or we will go in the opposite direction and take modern songs or tunes and then give them a more traditional feel. There are a lot of up-beat tempos and plenty of opportunity for people to sing along and to get up and dance.”

When looking for songs to perform or record, the band focuses on strong melodies, compelling lyrics, great story lines, or something that they can shape into an interesting or unusual arrangement. Sometimes RUNA will take parts of different songs and combine them, a process that gives a bit more dimension to an arrangement and makes it new and fresh.

Lambert-Ryan explained that different members of the band have songwriting experience with other groups they are involved with. They have just started to incorporate their own songs, drawn from family history, into their recordings and performances.

"The Ruthless Wife," an original RUNA composition written by Lambert-Ryan and De Barra, is on “Current Affairs,” the band's fourth studio album (2014).

“No one would believe the reality of how crazy the story is,” Lambert-Ryan said.

The song is about her great-great-grandfather, a cop who was killed in 1922 while on his beat near 8th and Callowhill streets, a few blocks north of Independence Hall. “He was dealing with a local gang lord and owed him money. He was also fond of the ladies, and my great-great-grandmother was not too happy about that. She refused to accept his pension when they came to present it to her. Meanwhile, another lady who he was seeing at the time poisoned herself after hearing about his death. She changed her mind, took a cab to Hahnemann Hospital, but it was too late to save her life.” Lambert-Ryan explained.

Lambert-Ryan, grew up in Olney, attended Council Rock High School North and graduated from Muhlenberg College in Allentown with a degree in music, theater and history. For several years, she worked as an actor in theater and film productions, including the Arden Theatre Company’s “Sweeney Todd,” Brian Friel’s “Translations” with the Irish Repertory Theatre of Philadelphia, and M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Village.”

In 2004, she went to Italy, where she performed as Ermia in the world premiere of “Il Sogno di una Notte di Mezza Estate” (Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream) with the International Opera Theatre Company. As a child, she studied Irish dance with Pat O’Donnell at the Commodore Barry Club in Mt. Airy.

Lambert-Ryan met De Barra at the Philadelphia Folk Festival in 2006. They married in 2009 and currently live in Newtown, Lower Bucks County.

RUNA was scheduled to perform at Pastorius Park in 2012. Threats of thunderstorms pushed them inside the school building.

“Unfortunately, the air conditioning wasn’t working and it was horrifically hot,” she said. “Hopefully, the weather will be very good to us and we’ll get to be outside in the park. We don’t get to perform at home that often anymore because we’re on the road and touring the rest of the country and Canada. We hope to head back to Europe soon. This is a very exciting time for the band.”

The band’s current album “RUNA Live” is available on CDbaby.com and iTunes. Watch the music video of The Ruthless Wife at www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWlGO0nwq8U.

Pastorius Park is at the corner of Millman Street and Hartwell Lane. If it rains, the show will move to Springside Chestnut Hill Academy, 8000 Cherokee Street. The free Pastorius Park Summer Concert Series is produced by the Chestnut Hill Community Association and is supported by the Chestnut Hill Community Fund and Chestnut Hill Hospital. More information about RUNA at www.runamusic.com.