Passim and the O’Donovan family have established a new artist grant fund named the Brian O’Donovan Legacy Fund to honor the many contributions Brian has made to Passim and to our Boston Celtic Music community. The Fund will award grants annually to qualified acts via a juried submission process.
Six grants of $2,500 each will be given annually to Celtic acts planning upcoming tours in New England.
Applications will be accepted July 7th – August 11th.
Requirements for the grant:
- Grants are $2500 each, with 6 grants given each year. 1 grant each year is earmarked for bringing an act to Passim’s Boston Celtic Music Festival.
- Acts must be within the broader Celtic traditions, including but not limited to Irish, Scottish, Cape Breton, Quebecois, and Galician. Trad, contemporary, and fusion styles of Celtic genres are all welcome.
- Proposed projects should be for funding live shows and tours. This is in honor of Brian’s love of building community through gathering to experience live music together.
- Shows and tours should be based in (or include dates in) New England.
- This must be for a future tour, not reimbursing costs from a past tour.
We prefer artists who have not been given a grant from Passim in the past (though that does not disqualify you). Projects that involve current Passim employees, staff, or board members may not apply.
Please email grants@passim.org with any questions.
Born in 1957, Brian O’Donovan grew up in Clonakilty in West Cork. He was the second youngest in a family of nine children. His father was a butcher and his mother was a full-time homemaker. It took leaving Ireland, however, for O’Donovan to truly appreciate the music of his homeland.
After graduating from the University College Cork in 1978, he moved to London and found a music scene, which O’Donovan described as “teeming with Irish emigrants. The traditional Irish music scene was thriving there, and I found myself very drawn to the music.”
O’Donovan’s interest in Irish music ended up changing the course of his life.
In 1980, he traveled to Boston for what was intended to be a three-week vacation. Instead, it became his new home. He met singer Lindsay Henes at a live Irish music session at a Brookline pub, The Village Coach House. They were married for 42 years.
O’Donovan’s road to radio also started in Boston at Emerson College, where he went to graduate school to get a master’s degree in mass communication in 1982. It was there that he worked on the college radio station WERS, producing music festivals and fundraisers.
O’Donovan’s experience in producing events sent him on another unexpected trajectory: the world of professional sports. In 1984, O’Donovan was hired as a consultant on an Irish music festival that was being produced at Gillette Stadium, which was then known as Sullivan Stadium. Impressed by his work, the Sullivans — who founded and owned the Patriots at the time — offered O’Donovan a full-time job to develop an events program for the stadium. He accepted, and over the years, he booked blockbuster acts such as Aerosmith, Madonna, David Bowie and U2.
While ascending the ranks of professional sports, O’Donovan never forgot his connection to Irish music. In 1986 he joined GBH to host a weekly radio show: A Celtic Sojourn.
What might have been “a sub-stream music genre program” in the early ’90s became a fixture on Saturdays, expanded to a three-hour weekly show. It also spawned another fixture in New England: the annual onstage production, “A Christmas Celtic Sojourn.”
O’Donovan’s work in celebrating and raising awareness about Irish music and the local immigrant network earned him special appreciation from the city of Boston. In 2017, then-Mayor Marty Walsh declared December 14 Brian O’Donovan Day “in recognition of his contributions to immigrant communities in Greater Boston.”
When discussing “why” he decided to publicly share his terminal brain cancer diagnosis on Boston Public Radio’s Jim and Margery, O’Donovan said it was to remind people that there is goodness. “The amount of kindness that has come to me through this dark diagnosis really strikes me — the goodness of people. Please think of that, that there are people out there that are ready to help you,” he said.
“Beyond his professional accomplishments, Brian was known for his generous spirit, kindness, and mentorship,” O’Donovan’s family said in a statement. “He touched the lives of many in the music industry, offering guidance and encouragement to emerging talent. His commitment to preserving and sharing the beauty of Celtic culture was not just a job—it was an integral part of his being.”
