Karan Casey is an Irish folk singer and pianist born in 1969 in County Waterford. She studied the piano at Waterford Regional Technical College and later studied music at University College Dublin and the Royal Irish Academy of Music. In 1993, she moved to New York City to study jazz at Long Island University. She began performing in the city's traditional music scene and joined the band Solas in 1994. She contributed to the group's debut album, Solas (1996), and remained a member until 1999. Casey released her debut solo album, Songlines, in 1997. In 2000, she narrated and performed on the collaborative project Seal Maiden. Her subsequent solo recordings included the albums The Winds Begin to Sing (2001), Distant Shore (2003) and Chasing the Sun (2005). In 2008, Casey and her husband, musician Niall Vallely, founded the label Crow Valley Music and issued the album Ships in the Forest. Her later recordings included the albums Two More Hours (2014), Hieroglyphs That Tell the Tale (2018) and Nine Apples of Gold (2023). Casey has collaborated with artists including John Doyle, Bela Fleck and The Dubliners.
