David MacKenzie & Josh Johnston

David MacKenzie & Josh Johnston are an Irish violin / piano jazz duo. Both classically trained, David is the principal second violinist of the RTE National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and Josh spends most of his time as a session musician playing the piano in various bands around Ireland or the organ in the Unitarian Church in Dublin. They started playing together by accident. Meeting through a mutual acquaintance (David's sister, Josh's piano teacher) they found a shared love of the cafe swing jazz made popular by Stephan Grappelli and a musical partnership was born.

They started playing together by accident. Meeting through a mutual acquaintance (David's sister, Josh's piano teacher) they found a shared love of the cafe swing jazz made popular by Stephan Grappelli and a musical partnership was born.

Unsure of what to play at first, they dabbled in various forms of crossover between jazz and classical. Their first CD, A Minor Happiness is a fun example of this habdashery of styles but during the sessions for this CD, David arrived with an original composition - neither of them have stopped composing since. Their 2nd CD Notes Home was released in 2008 is a series of musical postcards through 13 original tracks which perfectly capture the atmosphere of warm sunny days and balmy nights in the Mediterranean. It was recorded by sound engineer Brian Masterson and features supporting musicians Stephen McFarlane (electric guitar), Andrew Csibi (double bass) and Robbie Harris (percussion).