Fiddler Jesse Smith at Coatesville this weekend.
Remarkable fiddler Jesse Smith along with guitarist Ryan McGiver will be taking center stage this Saturday at the Coatesville Cultural Center, as part of Frank Dalton’s Coatesville Traditional Irish Music Series.
Smith is a product of Baltimore’s lively Irish music scene, though he now lives and plays in Ireland now where he played with the band, Danu. The son of musicians, he studied with noted teacher and musician Brendan Mulvihill. Smith’s debut solo CD, “Jigs and Reels,” was named to the top 10 list of Irish traditional music CDs by the Irish Echo. His latest CD is called “The Ewe with the Crooked Horn.”
On Sunday, a quartet of superlative Irish musicians will be performing a free concert for children at Calvary United Methodist Church in Philadelphia. Guitarist Arty McGlynn along with virtuoso fiddler Nollaig Casey and harper Maire Ni Chathasaigh and flat-picking guitar player Chris Newman together make up the Heartstrings Quartet.
That’s not the only freebie coming up. Local musician Andy Maher and his band will offer a free concert to all ages on Saturday, February 17, at the Irish Center, 6815 Emlen Street, Philadelphia.
Continuing this week: The play, “Little Gem,” by Dublin playwright Elaine Murphy, presented by the Inis Nua Theatre Company at their new location, The First Baptist Church at 16th and Sansom in Philadelphia.
Jamison is performing on Saturday night at Brittingham’s Irish Pub in Lafayette Hill.
Two Irish transplants to Philly, John Byrne and Enda Keegan, will be performing separately and together at The North Star Bar in Philadelphia on Monday night. In keeping with the free-for-all going on this week on the Irish music scene, there’s no cover charge, but you must be 21 (they card you).
Starting on Sunday, Irish dancers have a place to sell those dance shoes or solo dresses that don’t fit and maybe pick up a replacement. McKenna’s Irish Shop in Havertown will sell your used items at no charge and will be offering other dance items for sale. This dance “swap” runs through February 29.
On Wednesday, bring your sweetie to the seniors’ Valentine lunch at the Irish Center (no, they don’t card you unless you’re ordering at the bar). Lunch will be served in the Fireside Room and the Vince Gallagher Band will perform. Dancing is encouraged.
The Irish American Genealogy Group meets on Thursday at The Irish Immigration Center in Upper Darby. Genealogist Deborah Large Fox will be talking about Irish records.
And Jamison is getting loads of work. They’ll be at Dublin Square in Cherry Hill on Friday night.
Put a note on your calendar to catch Matt and Shannon Heaton on Friday night at Trinity Episcopal Church. This delightful duo from New England are creatively traditional.
Next weekend is a blockbuster. Not only can you catch that free performance of Andy Maher at the Irish Center, you’ll learn how the West of Ireland helped save uillean bagpiping (that’s the Irish bagpipe) with renowned piper Ivan Goff and Eamon O’Leary at the Irish Center—informational lecture at 3:30 PM, and a concert that evening at 8 PM. This is part of the Philadelphia Ceili Group’s
year-long series on the music of the West of Ireland.
And if you’re a faithful devotee of the annual Mid-Winter Scottish & Irish Festival, hopefully you got the memo. Because of delays in the construction of the new casino in Valley Forge, the festival was moved to the end of March. But you’ll probably still want to head over to the area next weekend. Some of the top groups of the festival weekend are putting on a performance at the nearby Radisson Hotel. You can catch Albannach, the percussion group from Scotland, and Brother, founded by a couple of Australian brothers, along with Kyf Brewer and his wild crew, Barleyjuice, and Celtic-Native American performer Arvel Bird on stage for many, many hours.
You can also attend the first of three fundraisers for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Philadelphia next weekend, this one thrown by the Second Street Irish Society, which usually takes up a couple of city blocks when it marches in the parade.
We’ve been typing our little fingers to the quick entering new events for both February and March. So saunter over to the calendar to see what’s coming up in the weeks to come. You’ll be in shock. Or maybe that’s just those of us who are trying to figure out to get to all these things.
