Following the success of
Bones, McKeown released a Christmas album,
Through the Bitter Frost and Snow, with 1-800-Prime-CD and
Broadcast Music, Inc. on October 14, 1997. Collaborating with primarily with American jazz double-bassist
Lindsey Horner, the album features guest appearances from Jeff Berman, Michelle Kinney, Pete McCann, and Carol Sharar.
Through the Bitter Frost & Snow was met with critical acclaim from various media outlets, including
AllMusic,
Rhythm, the
Los Angeles Times, and
The Washington Post, among others. While promoting the album, McKeown and Horner performed their version of
Auld Lang Syne on the
New Year’s Eve broadcast of
NPR’s
All Things Considered. Later that same year McKeown released
Snakes, her debut solo
EP with 1-800 Prime CD. Featuring songs from her previous collaborative projects,
Bones with The Chanting House and
Through the Bitter Frost and Snow with Lindsey Horner,
Snakes was released on November 1, 1997. Produced by McKeown, Horner, and Jimi Zhivago, the EP contains four tracks: "
Snakes/
Mná na hÉireann" (radio version), "Winter King", "Daddy's Little Girl", and "Snakes/Mná na hÉireann" (album version).
Mike Boehm of the
Los Angeles Times deemed the EP's titular track a "
Rosanne Cash-style folk-pop anthem." The following month McKeown contributed two tracks to
The Soul of Christmas: A Celtic Music Celebration, a compilation holiday album with
Tommy Boy Records. Produced by
New York Times bestselling author
Thomas Moore, the album also features appearances from
Cathie Ryan,
Johnny Cunningham,
Mary Fahl, and
Kathy Mattea. Upon its release, the album was accompanied by a
PBS Pledge Week Christmas Special of the same name. Hosted by
Martin Sheen, and featuring the albums primary vocalists, the special aired daily from December 6–14, 1997.
The Soul of Christmas: A Celtic Music Celebration was subsequently released for purchase on
VHS via
GlobalVision. McKeown released
Bushes & Briars, her first solo-album of
Celtic music, on on February 3, 1998 with Alula Records. Produced by McKeown,
Jamshied Sharifi, and Akira Satake,
Bushes & Briars features guest appearances from
Andy Irvine,
Chris Speed,
Greg Anderson,
Jerry O'Sullivan,
Skúli Sverrisson, and
Séamus Egan.
Buhses & Briars was lauded by critics.
Rick Anderson, in a review for
AllMusic awarded the album 4.5 stars, writing: {{Blockquote Norman Weinstein, in a review for
The Christian Science Monitor was equally effusive, noting "The most strikingly original contemporary woman singer working this Celtic vein is Susan McKeown. Her new CD on the Alula label,
Bushes & Briars, is a triumph."
Bushes & Briars received the 1998 Best Celtic Album Award from
Crossroads Magazine. Upon hearing the record, American singer-songwriter
Natalie Merchant invited McKeown to perform two duets on the
PBS television series
Sessions at West 54th. McKeown subsequently joined Merchant as a support act on 1999 tour, and appeared in the concert film
Natalie Merchant: Live in Concert, recorded at the
Neil Simon Theatre on
Broadway. McKeown released her second album-length collaboration with Lindsey Horner,
Mighty Rain through
Depth of Field on October 20, 1998. Produced by
Bobby Previte, McKeown and Horner,
Mighty Rain features a mixture of original compositions, covers, and traditional folk songs. Retroactively deemed an "overlooked gem in the output of these two genre-spanning artists." On this album, every sound heard is played by either McKeown or Horner, spanning acoustic bass, bass guitar, piano, whistles, bass clarinet, bodhrán, and shakers. The album features covers of two
Bob Dylan songs, "
If Not for You" and "
Dark Eyes," as well as a musical adaptation of the
Lucille Clifton poem "Let there be new flowering." That same year, McKeown contributed tracks three compilation albums: ''Celtic Heartbeat: A Winter's Tale
with Celtic Music, Colors Of The World - Celtic
with Alula Records, and The Song Poets'' with 1-800 Prime CD. In November 1998, McKeown appeared in a tribute concert for
Sandy Denny, lead singer of the British
folk rock band
Fairport Convention, at
St. Ann's Warehouse in
Brooklyn, New York. The lineup included
Darius Rucker,
Robyn Hitchcock, and
Mike Mills. Reporting on the concert,
New York Newsday observed that “McKeown nearly walked away with her stunning rendition; the effect was electric,” while
Rolling Stone wrote that “McKeown grabbed both song and audience by the throat, dragged them through heaven and hell and back again, and left the stage to the loudest applause heard all evening.” McKeown, Ryan, and Spielberg first met working on
The Soul of Christmas: A Celtic Music Celebration. While filming the accompanying television special, the trio hatched the idea for a "collaborative album of songs celebrating mothers and motherhood."
Mother was met with mixed to positive reviews from music critics. While promoting the album, McKeown, Ryan, and Spielberg were featured on ''
The Early Show's'' Mother's Day Special, airing May 5th, 1999 on
CBS. That same year, McKeown contributed tracks to two compilation albums:
The Most Beautiful Melodies Of Irish Music with
Celtophile Records, and
At Home for the Holidays with
Folk Next Door. McKeown released the album
Lowlands through
Green Linnet Records on September 26, 2000. Billed as the singers' "largest musical project to date," the album features over twenty-five guest musicians from Ireland, England, the United States, Iceland, Norway, Mali, India, and China. Produced by McKeown, the wide array of guest artists includes Malian griot
Mamadou Diabaté, Scottish cellist
Johnny Cunningham, American flutist
Joanie Madden, and the Irish band
Lúnasa.
Lowlands received widespread critical acclaim from various trade publications, including
AllMusic,
Q, and
Pulse!, among others. In a review for the former, music critic
Rick Anderson award the album 5 stars, writing "Susan McKeown is an Irish folk musician with an unusually diverse resume. She has made albums of original music and albums of traditional songs, including a stunning collection of seasonal tunes entitled
Through the Bitter Frost and Snow. She has collaborated with numerous musicians from traditions both within and without the Celtic the world, and her music has been used in TV commercials for products as diverse as facial cream and automobiles. At this point, the only really surprising thing she could have done would have been to make a primarily traditional Irish album, which is exactly what she's done with the beautiful
Lowlands… Highlights include the slight flamenco-flavored "The Dark Haired Girl" (An Nighean Dudh) and the anguished, a cappella “Dark Horse on the Wind.” Highly recommended." In support of the album, McKeown played the 2000
Glastonbury Festival in
Somerset, England, in a line-up including
Coldplay,
Saint Etienne, and
The Dandy Warhols. Britsh music publication
Q Magazine later deemed McKeown "the surprise hit of the 2000 festival." The following year she embarked on an international tour of the United States, United Kingdom, and Ireland to further support the album. The following year, McKeown released
A Winter Talisman through Sheila-na-Gig on December 19, 2001. A collaborative project with Scottish fiddle player,
Johnny Cunningham the album featured a wide variety of non-traditional holiday themed music. The album was met with critical acclaim, receiving 5 stars from
AllMusic. In a review for
Goldmine, Bruce Sylvester praised the album, writing "beautifully recorded with the sweet sounds of vocals, fiddle and guitar, the album evokes the feel of a winter's night around the fire with some good friends, some fine songs and stories, some great laughs and a peaceful journey home. As the glorious colours of autumn fade into the stark beauty of a silvery winter, friends and family gather together around the fire. Songs and stories are exchanged and shared tears and laughter become a powerful talisman against the cold darkness ahead." Michael Henningsen, in a review for
ALIBI Music was equally enthusiastic, writing "Celtic folk songs in English and captivating Gaelic, infused throughout with Cunningham's wry wit, poetic verse and monumental fiddling." Produced by McKeown, the album features a variety of musical influences from around the globe, including
Celtic folk, Mexican
Mariachi, and Malian
Tuareg music. Upon its release,
Sweet Liberty was lauded various media outlets. In a review for
AllMusic, William Ruhlmann awarded the album 4.5 stars, noting {{Blockquote
Jon Pareles of
The New York Times was equally enthusiastic, noting "From the bottomless trove of Irish ballads, Susan McKeown's
Sweet Liberty (World Village /Harmonia Mundi) comes up with songs of love, emigration and battle. Her voice has a mournful purity, and it's usually backed by pristinely folky guitar, fiddle and whistles. But she adds surprises: trip-hop electronics, mariachi trumpet and even Ensemble Tartit from Mali sharing a Gaelic call-and-response song that taunts, 'May a peeled potato with the moon in its middle choke you.'" Tad Hendrickson of
The Wall Street Journal offered a more mixed review, writing "Irish-born and New York-based singer Susan McKeown has made a name for herself over the last decade by interpreting Irish traditionals she's found through research or been taught by other musicians. Sometimes she can be a bit overambitious in her interpretations: thus we get a slightly disorienting version of the Irish song "Oró Mhíle Grá (A Thousand Times My Love)," which features McKeown fronting the Malian group Ensemble Tartit... Much of the rest of the album is beautifully understated Irish folk music driven with acoustic guitar, whistles, fiddle, and harmonium. The song "Eggs in Her Basket" was nominated for Best Original Track at the 2005
BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, and was subsequently included on the award ceremonies' compilation album with
Proper Records. McKeown released
Blackthorn: Irish Love Songs, her second album with
World Village, on March 14, 2006. The album is known for its sensual arrangements of often melancholic songs, with tracks like "Oíche Fá Fhéil' Bríde" (On Brigid's Eve), "An Draighneán Donn" (The Blackthorn Tree), and "The Lass of Aughrim." While promoting the album, McKeown commented "“To me, these love songs maintain their relevance even today. They express emotions that we all understand. And while they might be old, the subject of love remains universal and contemporary to us all.”
Blackthorn: Irish Love Songs was met with positive reviews from critics. William Ruhlmann, in a review for
AllMusic, awarded the album 3.5 stars, writing "McKeown has become something of a musicologist, and here she has done extensive research into traditional material; the songs are extensively annotated in the CD booklet, both by her and by
Tom Munnelly, to trace the origins of the tunes back centuries. But McKeown is not simply an aural historian, as she does not hesitate to manipulate the music to her own ends...
Blackthorn: Irish Love Songs is both an inventive work of scholarship and a musical treat."
Geoffrey Himes of
The Washington Post was also enthusiastic, noting "McKeown's latest album is "Blackthorn: Irish Love Songs," a collection of traditional numbers, mostly in Gaelic, mostly slow and mostly laments of frustrated desire. Despite the language barrier, the languid tempos and minimalist arrangements, McKeown's lush, limpid tone and dramatic phrasing fills the old melodies with a yearning that can be recognized on any continent in any century." Additionally,
Global Rhythm praised
Blackthorn, writing "Dublin's Susan McKeown is no ordinary Celtic singer . Her lilting vocals , whether in Irish or English , are full of personality…
Blackthorn, her ninth and latest album is a triumph.” Notably,
Blackthorn: Irish Love Songs featured arrangements by the late Irish singer
Eithne Ní Uallacháin. McKeown released the concept album
Singing in the Dark through Hibernia Records on October 30, 2010. According to McKeown, the album is "an exploration of "Creativity & Madness through the lyrics of great poets who were writing through the lens of
depression,
mania, or
substance abuse." With an introduction by psychologist
Kay Redfield Jamison, author of
Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, the album features poems by
Lord Byron,
Anne Sexton,
Theodore Roethke,
Gwendolyn Brooks,
Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill,
Gwyneth Lewis,
Hayden Carruth, and
James Clarence Mangan, as well as songs from
John Dowland,
Violeta Parra, and
Leonard Cohen. Upon its release,
Singing in the Dark received widespread critical acclaim from various media outlets, including
The Irish Times,
The New York Times,
Time Out,
El País,
The Boston Globe, the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer,
New Sounds,
WNYC,
PopMatters, and
IrishCentral, among others. Additionally, the
Brooklyn Downtown Star included
Singing in the Dark on their year-end list of "Top Ten Albums of 2010." Proceeds from the album were donated to the
National Alliance on Mental Illness,
Fountain House,
Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, and
Glenn Close's "Bring Change 2 Ming." Two years later, McKeown released the album
Belong through Sheila-na-Gig and Fish Records on November 13, 2012. Produced by McKeown, the album features guest appearances from
Declan O'Rourke and
James Maddock. Other contributing musicians include
Erik Della Penna,
Erin McKeown,
Doug Wieselman,
Dirk Powell,
Lindsey Horner,
Allison Miller,
Shahzad Ismaily, and
Ray Santiago, among others.
Belong peaked at No. 11 on the
Billboard Americana/Folk Albums chart, while the single "Everything We Had Was Good" reached No. 1 on U.S. the Folk Singles chart. Like much of her previous discography, the album was lauded by music critics, who praised McKeown's vocals, songwriting, and musical arrangements. Siobhán Long, in a review for
The Irish Times, awarded the album 4 stars, writing "McKeown's voice, widely admired for its clarity and richness of tone, is getting better and better with age. Ever more open, more welcoming, it's as if she is coming closer to home and to herself, with each of her recent album releases. It's apt then, that this latest collection is titled
Belong. Filled to bursting with songs that resemble diverse members of a single household, each one asserting its identity in suitably idiosyncratic fashion… Thought-provoking and joint-swivelling in equal measure:
Belong is quite an achievement." Gwen Orel, in a review for the
Irish Examiner, offered similar praise, remarking "
Belong is a mature CD that looks out as much as in, sharing observations of individuals and places, inviting the listener into its world." The song “No Jericho” was covered by Irish singer
Mary Coughlan on her 2020 album
Life Stories.
The Klezmatics mid-2000s lineup McKeown's musical partnership with the famed
klezmer band
The Klezmatics began in December 2003, when she was invited by
Arlo Guthrie to perform in
The Jewish Songs of Woody Guthrie, a concert held at New York's
92nd Street Y. The songs featured in the program were written during Guthrie's years in
Coney Island, where he lived with his second wife. Long forgotten in Guthrie's archives, the lyrics were rediscovered in 1998 by his daughter
Nora Guthrie, who passed them on to The Klezmatics to set to music. The Klezmatics, along with McKeown, produced two albums of these previously unreleased songs. The first,
Wonder Wheel, was released by
Shout! Studios on July 25, 2006. The album proved both a critical and commercial success, topping the
Billboard World Albums Chart and winning the 2007
Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Album at the
49th Annual Grammy Awards. The second project, ''Woody Guthrie's Happy Joyous Hanukkah'', also released by Shout! Studios on July 25, 2006, achieved similar critical and commercial success. McKeown later joined The Klezmatics on international and domestic tours in support of both albums. Together they played numerous venues, including
Carnegie Hall,
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the
Hollywood Bowl, and the
Walt Disney Concert Hall, among others. McKeown collaborated with the band for a third time on
Saints & Tzadiks, released by
World Village on August 11, 2009. Produced by McKeown and Sklamberg, the album features original arrangements of traditional
Irish and
Yiddish folk songs. Its title plays on a historical nickname for Ireland, "an island of Saints and Scholars," replacing "scholars" with "
Tzadik", a term in
Judaism denoting “highly learned and esteemed rabbinic leaders.”
Saints & Tzadiks received critical acclaim from various media outlets, including
AllMusic,
Blogcritics, and
Green Man Review. To promote the album, McKeown and The Klezmatics embarked on an international tour that included the
U.S.,
Germany,
Switzerland, and
Austria. McKeown collaborated with the band for a fourth time on the 2011 album
Live at Town Hall, recorded during a concert performance in New York City.
The Irish Times later described the play as “powerful, witty, and deeply moving.” in 1997. The play was later revived by the company in both 2002 and 2011. After meeting in 1993, Scottish musician
Johnny Cunningham asked McKeown to appear as the lead vocalist in a musical adaptation of
J. M. Barrie's
Peter Pan, which he was writing. Cunningham composed the musical’s score specifically for McKeown’s voice. His production,
Peter & Wendy, was commissioned by the experimental theatre company
Mabou Mines and premiered at the 1996
Spoleto Festival USA in
Charleston, South Carolina. The following year, the musical premiered Off-Broadway at
The Public Theater before transferring to the
New Victory Theater.
Peter & Wendy was a critical and commercial success, winning the 1997
Obie Award for Best Production. They then released an official cast album through Alula Records on October 1, 1997. Over the next fifteen years, it had subsequent productions at the
Yale Repertory Theatre in
New Haven, Connecticut; the
Geffen Playhouse in
Los Angeles, California; the
La Jolla Playhouse in
San Diego, California; the
Berkeley Repertory Theatre in
Berkeley, California; the
Olympia Theatre in
Dublin, Ireland; and the
Royal Lyceum Theatre in
Edinburgh, Scotland.
Peter & Wendy was revived Off-Broadway at the New Victory Theater in 2002 and 2011. McKeown appeared as lead vocalist in all productions. In 1996, McKeown composed and performed original music for
Charles L. Mee’s solo show
My House Was Collapsing Towards One Side at
Dance Theatre Workshop in New York City. In 2001, she composed original music for the U.S. premiere of
Marina Carr’s
By the Bog of Cats, in which she also appeared as Josie Swanee. The play was produced by the
San Jose Repertory Theatre and starred
Academy Award winner
Holly Hunter. In 2003, McKeown composed original music for the U.S. premiere of
Rona Munro’s
Susan Smith Blackburn Prize–winning play
Bold Girls, produced Off-Broadway by the
29th Street Rep. In 2016, McKeown composed original music for the world premiere of
Deirdre Kinahan’s
Wild Sky at the
Bewley’s Café Theatre in
Dublin. In January 2020, she was commissioned to write and perform original songs for
Honor Molloy’s
Round Room, a sequel to their earlier collaboration,
Maiden Voyages. Set in the corridors, back staircases, and wards of Dublin’s
Rotunda Hospital, the oldest maternity hospital in the world, the play spans more than two centuries and tells the stories of “handywomen and harlots, the lamp tender, the airline hostess and the girl in the grain.”
Round Room received a workshop production with Origin Theatre Company’s 1st Irish Theatre Festival, where it won the Best Play Award. Directed by Britt Berke, the ensemble featured Labhaoise Magee,
Brenda Meaney,
Rachel Pickup, Maeve Price, Zoe Watkins, and Aoife Williamson.
Film and Television Throughout her career, McKeown has appeared on various television and radio programs, including
The Late Late Show (1990),
Nighthawks (1990),
All Things Considered (1996),
Sessions at West 54th (1997),
The Early Show (1999),
A Prairie Home Companion (2000),
Mountain Stage (2001), and
The Infinite Mind (2003). In 2003, she contributed the score to Anne Makepeace’s documentary
Robert Capa: In Love and War. The film premiered in competition at the 2003
Sundance Film Festival and later aired as part of the
American Masters series on
PBS.
Robert Capa: In Love and War went on to win the 2003
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series. McKeown also contributed to the soundtracks of the feature films
My Brother’s War (2005) and
32A (2007). She made her screen acting debut in 2024, when filmmaker
Marian Quinn cast her as Teresa in the feature film
TWIG, a contemporary retelling of the Greek tragedy
Antigone set in Dublin.
TWIG served as the opening film of the 2024
Dublin International Film Festival. ==Personal life==