Anne Sands is a member of the internationally acclaimed Sands Family from County Down in Northern Ireland. She cut her first album at the age of 12 and by the age of 16 had swapped the village halls of County Down for Carnegie Hall in New York. Together with her brothers Tom, Colum and Ben she has travelled the world winning new audiences for Irish music and adding a new international dimension to that music.
Her unique voice and her sensitive interpretation are an integral part of what makes The Sands Family such a musical phenomenon. Anne's ability to take a song and make it her own is widely recognised throughout the world of Irish music and beyond.
Her repertoire includes traditional songs she collected as a child from mentors like Sarah Makem of Keady. These are songs of love and betrayal, exile and the heart's fondness for things familiar. It also includes songs by contemporary writers about the futility of war, such as her brother Tom's hauntingly evocative song ‘Sadako’ about a little girl who survived the Hiroshima bomb only to die from the effects of radiation sickness.
Many of Anne's more traditional songs, such as the 14th century Irish ballad, ‘Donal Og’, are sung unaccompanied in the Sean Nos tradition. On others she accompanies herself on the Irish goatskin drum, the bodhran. Apart from being an accomplished player she also teaches the bodhran at her home in the picturesque village of Rostrevor.
Her talent has taken her to Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Portugal, Poland, Spain, Switzerland and the USA. Anne has also performed in hospitals and schools in Cuba.
Anne still records and tours with The Sands Family Folk Group, playing regularly at festivals in Britain, Ireland and Western Europe.
