Nearly twenty years into his career on the international folk circuit, Alastair Moock has managed to carve out a unique niche for himself: He is an artist committed to celebrating the roots of American music while knocking down the walls between different
audiences, genres and musical traditions. Today, his audiences range from adults all the way down to preschoolers, and he
plays everything from nightclubs to theaters to schoolrooms. Like his boyhood hero, Woody Guthrie, Moock believes in the
power of music to reach all people — young and old, far and wide, for all occasions.
Moock started performing in 1995, moving from his home outside New York City to the folk haven of Boston, Massachusetts.
After honing his skills on Boston's open mike stages and working his way up through the local coffeehouse and club circuit,
he began touring around the U.S. By 2002, he had traveled extensively throughout the East and Midwest, performing at some
of the top listening rooms and outdoor events in the country, including the Newport, Falcon Ridge, and Boston
Folk Festivals, The Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, The Birchmere in Washington D.C., and
The Bluebird Café in Nashville. In 2003 he made his
first trip to Europe, where he performed at the prestigious Bergen Music Fest in Norway. Since then he has made numerous
trips across the pond with appearances in Scandinavia, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the UK.
In 2007, on the heels of Fortune Strret, his fifth album and second on CoraZong Records, Moock was nominated for a Boston Music Award for Outstanding Singer/Songwriter
of the Year. The Boston Globe calls him “one of the town's best and most adventurous
songwriters” and The Washington Post says “every song is a gem.”
Throughout his career, Moock had worked with and occasionally performed for kids on the side, but it wasn't until his twin
daughters were born in 2006 that he was inspired to make his first foray into family music. Since then, he has turned much of his focus in that direction. In 2010, he joined the roster of Young Audiences of Massachusetts to bring his program Music and Social Change to students throughout the state. He has also recorded two award-winning albums for "kids and their parents" which together have garnered two NAPPA Gold Awards, a Parent’s Choice Silver Award, and inclusion in multiple Best of the Year lists.
But it is Moock’s newest album, Singing Our Way Through: Songs for the World’s Bravest Kids, which is nearest and dearest to his heart. In July of 2012, one of Alastair’s daughter’s was diagnosed with leukemia. The Singing Our Way Through project began when they started writing songs together in the hospital. Over the next several months, Moock continued to write and collect songs that reflected his family’s experiences – the love, the pride, the (surprising amount of) joy, and some of the more difficult parts too.
Moock decided he wanted to record an album for other families traveling similar paths. He was joined by friends and collaborators from the world of Americana music, including blues legend Chris Smither, folk singer Aoife O’Donovan (vocalist for the 2013 Grammy-winning Goat Rodeo Sessions, Best Folk Album), and family music artists Rani Arbo, The Okee Dokee Brothers (2013 Grammy-winners, Best Children’s Album) and Elizabeth Mitchell (2013 Grammy-nominee, Best Children’s Album). The album is due out in August, 2013 and will be widely distributed to pediatric oncology programs around the country. You can read the press release here.
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