Cats. Irish music. Drinking songs. Nowhere else but from the bright imagination of Marc Gunn would those three elements be so neatly integrated. Yet Gunn, sometimes called "the hardest working man in Celtic music" around his hometown in Austin, is an accomplished musician and entrepreneur who not long ago headlined at the Oscar party for Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. CATS The Musical is a musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber (ALW) in 1981 based on Old Possums Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot. ... Ireland is an island in the North Atlantic politically divided between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. ... Celtic music is a broad grouping of musical genres that evolved out of the folk musical traditions of the Celtic peoples of Western Europe. ... Although he never won an Oscar for any of his movie performances, the comedian Bob Hope received two honorary Oscars for his contributions to cinema. ... Dust jacket of the 1968 UK edition The Lord of the Rings is an epic fantasy story by J. R. R. Tolkien, a sequel to his earlier work, The Hobbit. ... ROTK redirects here, for the Three Kingdoms game series see Sangokushi The Return of the King is the third and final volume of J. R. R. Tolkiens The Lord of the Rings, following The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. ...

For Gunn, it started small, though not inauspiciously, wearing a kilt on campus at the University of Texas at Austin. As the autoharp-playing half of the Brobdingnagian Bards, Gunn and partner Andrew McKee developed a loyal following with weekly performances on campus. This quickly led to gigs at renaissance faires, science fiction conventions, and Celtic music festivals as well as parties and weddings for the pair. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The University of Texas at Austin, often called UT or Texas, is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. ... An Autoharp The Autoharp is a zither-like musical string instrument having a series of chord bars attached to dampers which, when depressed, mute all the strings other than those that form the desired chord. ... The Brobdingnagian Bards are a Celtic music group from Austin, Texas. ... Rear Admiral Andrew I. McKee pioneered modern submarine design and development. ... A Renaissance Fair or Renaissance Festival is an outdoor weekend gathering ostensibly focused on recreating life as it was during the Renaissance. ... Science fiction conventions are gatherings of the community of fans (called science fiction fandom) of various forms of science fiction and fantasy. ...

With the Bards’ calendar busy, Gunn began producing the duo’s recordings. Their first effort in 1999 was Marked By Great Size followed by Gullible's Travels in 2000. The third release was 2001’s instrumental Songs of the Muse, then two theme CDs A Faire To Remember and A Celtic Renaissance Wedding. 2002 saw the release of Songs of Ireland, 2003 brought Memories of Middle Earth, and their latest CD is Brobdingnagian Fairy Tales. A long-awaited solo album, Soul of a Harper, brought Gunn accolades in 2004; he then embarked on work for Irish Drinking Songs for Cat Lovers. ... Middle-earth is the name used for the inhabitable parts of J.R.R. Tolkiens fictional Arda (ancient Earth) where the (canonical) stories in his legendarium take place. ...

Gunn’s activities are not restricted to musical performance alone. He is the brains behind an online resource called the Celtic MP3s Music Magazine (http://www.celticmp3s.com/). The weekly publication reviews Celtic music of all varieties from Irish traditional music to Celtic rock. Two free, full-length MP3s are offered for download every week on the site. Additionally, Gunn publishes The Bards Crier's Music Marketing and Promotion Tips Ezine (http://www.bardscrier.com/), a newsletter that teaches musicians about marketing and promotion, and handles webmaster duties for a variety of sites including the Austin Celtic Association. Folk-rock is a musical genre, combining elements of folk music and rock music. ... MPEG Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a popular digital audio encoding and lossy compression format invented and standardized in 1991 by a team of engineers working in the framework of the ISO/IEC MPEG audio committee under the chairmanship of Professor Hans Musmann (University of... An ezine is a periodic publication distributed by email or posted on a website. ... The Austin Celtic Association is a non-profit organization based in Central Texas. ...

All that hard work and effort has hardly gone unnoticed. Fans have downloaded more than five million MP3s from him; over one million of those were for the hugely popular "Tolkien (The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings)." The Brobdingnagian Bards were voted “Best Renaissance Men” in the Austin Chronicle’s 2003 Best of Austin poll. In March of 2005, The Bards collected an Austin Music Award for the Bards as Best Novelty Band, the first time any Celtic band has won. Gunn’s solo CD Soul of a Harper won the Best Cover Art category that year. J. R. R. Tolkien in 1916, wearing his British Army uniform in a photograph from the middle years of WW1. ... The trip taken in The Hobbit in middle earth shown in red The Hobbit is a fantasy novel written by J. R. R. Tolkien originally as a childrens story in the tradition of the fairy tale. ... By region Italian Renaissance Spanish Renaissance Northern Renaissance English Renaissance French Renaissance German Renaissance Polish Renaissance The Renaissance, also known as Il Rinascimento (in Italian), was an influential cultural movement which brought about a period of scientific revolution, religious reform and artistic transformation, at the dawn of modern European history. ... The Austin Chronicle is an alternative weekly newspaper published in Austin, Texas, United States. ...

In a town famous for almost every musical genre except Celtic music, Marc Gunn has raised the bar and held it high. Using the musical past and a vivid imagination bolstered with ambition and drive, he blazes trails from terra firma to cyberspace, encouraging others to follow.

Discography

• Intent on World Domination with Skander (1995)
• Breastfed with Breastfed (1997)
• Ichabod's Geograpy (1998)
• October Sessions (1998)
• Mountain Rain (2001)
• Celtic Love & War (2002)
• Soul of a Harper (2004)
• When Kitty Eyes Are Smiling (2005)
• Irish Drinking Songs for Cat Lovers (2006)
• 4 Irish Whiskey Drinking Songs (2006)

See Brobdingnagian Bards for additional discography. 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1997 (MCMXCVII) is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... 2001: A Space Odyssey. ... 2002 (MMII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Brobdingnagian Bards are a Celtic music group from Austin, Texas. ...