The Swell Season

• Genre: Baroque Pop
• Hometown: Dublin

About

The vocation of Irish-born singer and songwriter Glen Hansard has a timeless charm. As a teen, he quit school to busk in the streets of Dublin and rambled from one project to the next before eventually putting together an internationally acclaimed rock band, the Frames, and embarking on distinguished careers as an actor and solo artist. His first venture as a solo act came in 2006, when he joined Czech singer and multi-instrumentalist Marketa Irglova to issue the critically acclaimed The Swell Season. Though both were untrained as actors, Hansard and Irglova starred in director John Carney's independently released musical Once, which was nominated for two Grammys; its heartrending central tune "Falling Slowly" won the Oscar for Best Song in 2008.

- Nate Cavalieri