Hi, my name is Nathan Townley and I am 24 years old. I come from a family of 6 boys and my brothers and I grew up playing in the Townley Family Band. I always loved music and performance. The yearning to be creative and express myself has driven me to dedicate my life to being the best musician I can. When I was 15 I studied jazz piano under John Gonsalves, a WW2 Veteran and a retired band teacher. I spent my high school days playing as much jazz as possible if I wasn’t playing on one of the many church worship teams I was a part of.
In 2018 I got the opportunity to go to Ireland and fell in love with Irish music - everything about it, and the culture around art there is just wonderful and wholesome. This led me on a great adventure learning many beautiful tunes on the penny whistle, melodica, Irish bouzouki, bodhrán, and even the Irish Bones!
In 2022, I composed an album full of Irish music. It’s called Butterflies. More details about that here.
Hi! I am Alisha Townley, a 3rd generation fiddler from Northern California following my grandmother (the lovely) Patricia Scott and my amazing mother Melissa Troberg-Southwick. She started teaching me fiddle very young, around the age of 2 or 3, and helped me grow musically in many ways such as taking me and my sister to play at many Texas-style fiddle contests in and around California. Music has always been the most enriching and inspiring part of my life. Once in grade school, I traded the fiddle for flute for a few years and started appreciating classical music more deeply. Soon after high school, I picked up fiddle again and threw myself into it with a fervor more intense than ever, longing to learn as much Irish music as possible and wanting to understand what makes each folk style distinct from the next.
In 2020, I joined a Celtic band called Valley Quest with Nathan and some friends. It was shortly after that I made the plunge into the world of cello playing, having been first inspired by Rushad Eggleston as a young child and Tristan Clarriage over recent years. It’s worth noting, too, that Tashina Clarriage-Lindley has a been hugely influential and supportive teacher to me, encouraging me to dive deeper into music and pursue my dreams. My hope is to share beautiful music and similarly encourage everyone I can along their own musical journey!
I haven’t composed any of my own albums yet. Here’s a silly picture of my “focus” face!
How We Met
In December of 2019, Nathan met Alisha at a Christmas potluck hosted by the California Old Time Fiddle Association District 6 after being invited by Pat Scott, Alisha’s Grandma. As there were very few young adults participating in the group at that time, they found a common rapport amongst themselves and started playing music together. Alisha was very interested in learning more Irish music and Nathan had just returned from an inspiring visit to Ireland, so they launched into the project of listening to and learning as much as possible!
They quickly became good friends. Nathan had just started learning a new instrument, the Irish Bouzouki and spent the bulk of his time dedicated to becoming a proficient Irish accompanist. About 6 months later, Nathan invited some of his other friends, Kenny Bostrom and Trenton Houghtby, to join him and Alisha for some jams, and they soon formed a Celtic band called Valley Quest and all grew very close to one another.
It was 3 years before Nathan and Alisha even considered dating one another. Alisha loved the music craft, but her attention to that was limited greatly by college and other jobs. Nathan was sure he wanted to marry a musician, so he was waiting for a suitable partner who would join him oriented in that direction. Finally in 2022, after going to a music camp led by Tristan and Tashina, Alisha decided it was time to pursue her true lifelong dream of doing music full time - she quit school and her full time job, and started teaching. Only 5 days after that, they started dating, and got married 8 months later on March 11, 2023.
Our wedding was all about music! Here are some pictures of what our wedding looked like.
