Browsing Category

Music

Music

Slide Returns to Philadelphia with Another Great Show of “Daireobics”

Slide

Slide

The crowd at The Annenberg Center was treated to a tuneful Christmas concert by innovative Irish group Slide on December 11, 2010.  Onstage this tour were Daire Bracken on fiddle; Eamonn de Barra on flute, whistle, keyboards and bodhran; Mick Broderick on bouzouki; Colm Delaney on concertina; and Dave Curley on guitar, bodhran and providing some beautiful vocals.

Bracken’s energetic fiddling style (the “daireobics” of the evening) is always worth a special mention, and his performance at The Annenberg Center was no less than its usual dazzling ball of fire. Broderick’s bouzouki playing and Delaney’s head banging concertina style were an integral part of the consistently high energy of the evening, but Dave Curley, a more recent addition to the band, subtly seduced the audience with his “velvety vocals.”

And de Barra, in between switching from one incredibly played instrument to another, gave a special shout-out to his local connection in the audience: his brother Fionan is married to Philly girl Shannon Lambert-Ryan. Along with Cheryl Prashker, and occasionally Isaac Alderson, Fionan and Shannon are part of the up and coming band Runa.

We have some videos from the evening; make sure to catch Dave Curley’s solo rendition of The Pogues’ Christmas classic “Fairytale of New York.”

December 21, 2010 by
Music

We Had Ourselves a Merry Little Time

Tommy Martin and Séamus Begley.

Tommy Martin and Séamus Begley.

“Irish Christmas in America,” Sunday night at the Philadelphia Irish Center, was a great show. So great that we wanted to share plenty of videos with you so that you could see precisely how great it was. Really, really great.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the Web site. Our camera walked—and with it went all our videos. We blame the wiki-hackers.

We can tell you about it, of course. With members of the Irish band Teada at its core and led by fiddler Oisín Mac Diarmada, the ensemble was aided and abetted by uilleann piper Tommy Martin, County Mayo harper Gráinne Hambly and singer-box player-part time comedian Séamus Begley. Sean-nos dancer Brian Cunningham took to the stage frequently throughout the night, threatening to slam through the Irish Center stage. (The crowd—and it was a pretty good crowd—loved him.)

Irish Christmas in America crosses an ocean and cultural boundaries to share the traditions of the Irish—both at home and in their adopted country. So there were stories of the Wren Boys, Little Christmas and the bittersweet “wake” that became the tradition of those who parted from friends and family as they departed for the distant shores of America.

These poignant stories were accompanied by brilliant slides that set the mood and served as a counterpoint to the reels, jigs, airs and songs served up all night by the band. When he wasn’t regaling the audience with off-topic but hilarious stories of his own, Begley held the audience in rapt attention as he sang tunes like “Silent Night”—first in Irish, then in English—and “The Parting Glass.” One minute, you were laughing so hard you almost fell out of your seat, the next moment you were a puddle of tears.

As we’ve pointed out: No videos. But we do have a few photos to help you get into a seasonal mood.

December 17, 2010 by
Music

From Michael Coleman to Riverdance

Patrick Mangan

Patrick Mangan

For years to come, two words inevitably will precede Patrick Mangan’s name: “Riverdance fiddler.”

Which is OK by him.

Although he is well-grounded in traditional Irish music—and you’ll hear plenty of it Saturday night when he plays a concert at the Philadelphia Irish Center with friend and singer-guitarist Ryan McGiver—Riverdance is a major part of his life, and has been for a decade.

Mangan, born in Brooklyn and trained in the ways of New York Sligo-style fiddling by the great Brian Conway, first came to the attention of the show’s producers in 2000, when he was just 15, By that point in his life, he had already won the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann (the world competition of Irish music, also known as the All-Irelands) twice, in 1994 and 1997. He was young, but he’d already had experience on the world stage.

Riverdance was quite another thing altogether.

He remembers when he first considered trying out for the show. “I saw something in one of the New York Irish papers. It was just a little listing saying Riverdance was looking for substitute fiddlers for the show on Broadway,” he says. “So I recorded a little four-track demo and sent it in. They invited me to audition, and I remember playing in front of the show’s composer Bill Whelan and the piper Declan Masterson. (After that) I didn’t hear anything for almost a year. Then they invited me to audition again.”

It turned out that one not-so-little factor gave the show’s producers pause. “They had never had a male fiddler before. It broke the mold. Eileen Ivers had made it an iconic role for a female fiddler, and they were a little on the fence about that, but they decided to give it a shot.”

That was in 2001. He was 16.

That shot turned into a fill-in gig that Mangan wound up squeezing into his high school and, later, college schedule.

The relationship with Riverdance evolved into something deeper and longer-lasting not long after his graduation from Tufts with a degree in English, with a minor in music. The degree seemed like the right thing to do, and it played to his strengths, but after graduation Mangan still hadn’t settled on a career path.

And then Riverdance came calling again. “I had maintained the connection with them throughout high school and college. Then, just after graduation, a full-time spot opened up with the American touring company. I’ve been touring with them full-time since college. I’ve been all over the world. It’s lucky Riverdance came along when it did.”

(His long relationship with Riverdance also changed his life in another significant way. It’s where he met his future wife, fellow cast member and Russian dancer Natia Rtveliashvili. They were married in June of this year. At last count, there have been over 30 marriages among Riverdance cast members.)

Mangan came to Riverdance already well-schooled in the traditional style of fiddle play. In fact, because he was taught by Brian Conway, and Conway was mentored in part by Andy McGann—and McGann himself was schooled by Coleman—Mangan has been described as a “direct artistic descendant of early 20th-century Irish-American fiddler Michael Coleman.” It’s worth noting that Mangan himself, when he was very young, also played with McGann, and McGann’s contemporary Paddy Reynolds.

“Just to have that influence and those older musicians being so gracious and generous when I was growing up, i was very lucky to be growing up at that time,” Mangan says.

And because his parents were devotees of traditional music, there was never a time in Mangan’s young life that he was not exposed to the old tunes of Ireland. He recalls listening to the music from his stroller at the Irish festival in Snug Harbor on Staten Island.

His love of that form of music has never gone away. As much as Riverdance has helped him gain in popularity and name recognition—and it has done that—he’s eager to play the old style with his partner McGiver.

Still, Mangan began his fiddle schooling with classical music taught in the Suzuki method, and he maintained his familiarity with the classical throughout his childhood and high school.

Between his deep familiarity with both styles—traditional Irish and classical—Mangan says he felt well qualified to play the Riverdance style of Irish music, which is nothing like the way Michael Coleman played it. In addition, Mangan himself relishes many styles and types of music.

“Riverdance at its core is based in Irish music,” he says, “but it’s good to have a grounding in classical music. You can play in different styles if you have the technique. And I always enjoyed improvising. I’ve never had too much of a problem with that. When I first learned the (Riverdance) music, it was a fun challenge. By now, I’ve played it so many times, I could do it in my sleep.”

For Mangan, playing in the blockbuster Irish show that laid the groundwork for all the Celtic women and Irish tenors who would follow still holds his deep interest. In fact, he’s soon going to go out on the road with Riverdance again.

And that’s just fine with him, too.

“As many times as I’ve heard that music,” he says, “certain musical moments in the show still get to me. There’s a reason why that show has gone on as long as it has. It’s just amazing how much my life has been touched by it, how one thing has led to another.”

December 17, 2010 by
Music

Music and Memories

A memorial to Don Trefsger at the Mermaid Inn session Sunday.

A memorial to Don Trefsger at the Mermaid Inn session Sunday.

Some glad morning when this life is o’er,
I’ll fly away;
To a home on God’s celestial shore,
I’ll fly away.

I’ll fly away, Oh Glory
I’ll fly away;
When I die, Hallelujah, by and by,
I’ll fly away.
They were all there on Sunday: singers, fiddlers, an uilleann piper, and tin whistle, accordion, mandolin and harmonica players. Traditional Irish and bluegrass. Old guys with gray beards and young kids wearing flip-flops. The Mermaid Inn’s barroom isn’t all that spacious, but musicians of all stripes took up half of it.

They sat facing each other in a circle of hard-backed wooden chairs, the afternoon sunlight pouring through the bar’s stained glass windows, and they sang songs of remembrance. Songs like “Amazing Grace,” Hank Williams’ “I Saw the Light” and the Gospel bluegrass standard, “I’ll Fly Away.”

When bassist Don Trefsger left this world, a year and a half after the motorcycle accident that left him paralyzed, he clearly left behind many good friends, and a surfeit of songs.

Non-musical relatives, friends and fellow congregants from Cumberland County Community Church took up the rest of the room and overflowed into a small adjoining dining room. There were so many, they required name tags. maybe the only person who didn’t need a name tag was Chris Brennan Hagy, who organized the memorial. She attended to Trefsger and was so often at his side that he referred to her as his “angel.”

Trefsger himself was there, in a way. A small gold box containing his ashes sat on a wide window ledge off in a corner, surrounded by memorabilia, including his tweed cap, a souvenir shirt from his visit to the Grand Ole Opry, “live at the Mermaid” CDs on which he played, and a cluster of snapshots.

One by one, the people who loved him stood to share their memories and tributes.

Fiddler Kay Gering recalled a man who, even in the toughest time of his life, found room in his heart for everyone. Seeing him in the nursing home where he spent his final months and seeing how he responded to his many visitors, she said, “made me see the grace a person can have in the most difficult situations. Don had a beautiful soul in him. His spirit just came out in that difficult process.”

Sal Roggio, pastor of the Cumberland County Community Church, where Trefsger played in the musical group, recalled times when he would just sit with him between services and talk about music and life. Little did he know how much that life was going to change.

Visiting him in the nursing home, Roggio said, he saw Trefsger in his darker moments. But he came to terms with his fate, he noted, and certain hymns spoke to him, especially “Blessed Assurance, Jesus Is Mine.”

In coming to grips with his own sense of loss, Roggio perhaps spoke for everyone in the room. “He was only with us a short time,” he said, “but he left a big footprint. He left a mark.”

December 10, 2010 by
Music

Susan McKeown: Singing in the Dark and Radiating Light

Irish singer-songwriter Susan McKeown

Irish singer-songwriter Susan McKeown

“Oh yes I am broken, But my limp is the best part of me.” ~ Welsh poet Gwyneth Lewis from “Angel of Depression”

Creativity and depression.  Two states of being that often are inextricably etched in our collective minds when we think of artists and writers; the term “Byronic hero” immediately conjures up an image of the late great poet, brooding and melancholic, as he pens his immortal verse.

But for all that, there is still a stigma surrounding the topic of mental illness.  Susan McKeown’s new CD, “Singing in the Dark” is bringing the subject into the light in a brilliant and innovative way.

It’s a project that has been nearly 10 years in the making; the Dublin-born Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter has the gift of being able to work on multiple projects simultaneously while never losing sight of her creative goals.

“Seven years ago, my marriage had just ended, my father passed away, and my musical partner [Johnny Cunningham] died.  What I do at times like those is to go to poetry, particularly early Irish poetry. I get so much solace from what the monks of that time wrote.  And from what women poets have written,” McKeown explained to me over lunch in New York a few weeks ago.

“I originally had an idea for an album of dark songs, because listening to dark songs has helped me go into my own world … you get something from music like that.”

“And then one day I was hanging out with Natalie Merchant, our daughters were having a playdate,” McKeown laughed. “And we were talking about my idea, and a light bulb went off. An album like this would be the perfect place to explore darkness in very human terms, and the link between creativity and that darkness.”

“Depression, and manic depression, these are not something that people talk about. People are afraid to associate themselves with it, or speak about it. When I recognized this, I realized it was time to start singing about it.”

It was Merchant who introduced McKeown to the writing of Kay Redfield Jamison, whose book “Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and The Artistic Temperament” became part of McKeown’s inspiration as she began work on her album.

Jamison herself became an important part of the project, and she writes in the introduction to “Singing in the Dark” of how McKeown “gives beautiful voice to those who have written of their suffering … has chosen the works of writers who describe their melancholy vividly, unforgettably.”

There are inclusions from the likes of Anne Sexton whose poem, “A Woman Like That” has been turned into a powerful anthem; Gwendolyn Brooks with the haunting lyrics “I shall not sing a May song, A May song should be gay, I’ll wait until November, And sing a song of gray” from “The Crazy Woman;” and Lord Byron himself appears with the melodic “So We’ll Go No More A-Roving.”
 
Because she’s never one to make things easy on herself, McKeown decided that her album would consist primarily, though not completely, of poems that had never been put to music before. And then she set about writing the music to five of those poems herself. I know because I counted them, and when I pointed this out to her, she seemed surprised and then laughed that she’d never consciously realized that.

“I’ve always written poetry, and music. When I was twelve, I entered a school contest and came in second with my song ’The Music Box;’ I was very influenced by Joni Mitchell.

“I think of music as poetry, so I start out writing them as poems. The challenge with writing the music for this CD was to find the music that each of the poems was looking for to make them singable. I just wrote as things would come; it’s completely subjective. What’s singable to me wouldn’t be for everyone … everyone has their own index.

“The music for James Clarence Mangan’s ‘The Nameless One,’ I woke up with the chorus in my head. When something comes like that, you feel like you’ve been given such a gift.”

The poems themselves were inspired from all sorts of different sources; researching the material was a huge part of the project. 

“I got the idea for the poems from all kinds of places…’Good Old World Blues,’ I was given that one from a man I was on a second date with. There wasn’t a third date, but I got a really great song from it!”

The poem, “Mad Sweeney,” which was found as a manuscript in the 1670s, is believed to date back to the 10th century if not earlier, and McKeown received permission from Seamus Heaney to include his line ‘I need woods for consolation’ in the lyrics. But other than that, “the words are translated as they were originally written. It’s just human. And timeless. It could have been written about a homeless person today…and that’s what I wanted to get across.”

“I spent the last two years recording, we began in 2008 with John Dowland’s ‘In Darkness Let Me Dwell;’ this was always my favorite Dowland song. That one was recorded on Achill Island in Mayo with Steve Cooney. He had actually played Dowland’s music 20 years prior.”

With so much great material, and so many years of blood and sweat, how did McKeown know when it was complete? “When it’s hanging together well, and the glue is sticking, and the taste is good, then it’s done,” she laughed.

McKeown launched her CD at the end of October at Symphony Space in New York with an eleven piece backing band, following a daylong symposium at NYU’s Glucksman Ireland House. McKeown partnered with them to present the event, titled “Singing in the Dark: Irishness, Creativity, Madness.“

“I went to Ireland House because I have a relationship with them. It’s like drinking from a well … I’ve performed there many times. And it was such a great place to explore the topic in a scholarly fashion. Everyone who spoke there was so enthusiastic. I hope it’s just the first year; I would love to sponsor an annual festival to acknowledge our dark moods and how to use creativity to move out of them.”

Because there is no getting away from the link between Ireland and depression. Among the speakers were Patrick Tracey, author of “Stalking Irish Madness: Searching for the Roots of My Family’s Schizophrenia,” and Angela Bourke, who wrote “Maeve Brennan: Homesick at The New Yorker.”

And McKeown admits that, “yes, there are elements of what’s been going on in my own family … I discovered that there are three generations of men who all carried strains of manic depression, and interestingly, all three men married musical women.”

“People who are given these extra challenges as well as gifts are just trying to balance them, and learning that takes a lifetime … it’s how it is, there are high rates of creativity going along with depression.  So I felt this is a wonderful way for me to speak out about it from the creative side.”

McKeown has begun touring for the CD, with dates scheduled in March 2011 for Germany, some in Ireland, and many more U.S. venues to be added in the next year. You can keep up with her plans on her Web site http://www.susanmckeown.com/live.html

Though she won’t be taking the 11-piece orchestra around the world with her, she has her trusted team traveling with her. “The two musicians that I’m taking on tour with me are Jason Sypher and Eamon O’Leary.  I met them when I started going to a session that Eamon runs at The Brass Monkey in The West Village. It’s on Sunday nights from 5-8, and it’s great because I can bring my daughter there.”

The whole process has been one she’s cherished.

“This became something I had to accomplish in this life. It has been so satisfying to research it, so rewarding and such a pleasurable experience to record, and to do the tour … I’m just on a high. Because it’s got such meaning, and meaning for me is everything.

“I love all my albums, but this was something a bit different because it was a stretch and required a little effort.

“I like to explore and to challenge myself. I’m starting to look forward to challenges … I want to do something where people will say ‘Oh, that’s different!’ But in a pleasant way. These are songs that won’t be on your local jukebox, but that’s what makes it interesting.”

December 4, 2010 by
Music

Review: “The Blue Dress” by Shannon Heaton

The Blue Dress

The Blue Dress

“The Blue Dress” is all softness and satin. On her new solo album, the delicate sound of Shannon Heaton’s Irish wooden flute is accompanied nearly throughout by lighter-than-air instruments such as Maeve Gilchrist’s harp and her husband Matt’s guitar and bouzouki. The result is 12 tracks of beautifully played tunes that all blend together like the threads of some silvery, fairy-spun fabric.

That’s not to suggest “The Blue Dress” is insubstantial. All of the choices are firmly rooted in traditional music, from “Boil the Breakfast Early” and “Eddie Duffy’s Reel” to “Campbells Are Coming” and “Irish Washerwoman.” The tune selection is a nice balance of reels and jigs, with a set of hornpipes (“Grandfather’s Thoughts” and “Fairy Queen”) and a pair of polkas (“#99 Polka” and “High Caul Cap”) thrown in for balance.

Heaton also is supported by Paddy League on bodhran, percussion and bouzouki, and by Liz Simmons on guitar. League is especially effective on the polka track, playing what sounds like djembe on these very syncopated tunes. It’s the kind of set that, on a Lunasa CD, probably would transition to a mazurka. League’s bodhran play on the “Dennis Watson’s” reel set (“Wheels of the World,” “The Flogging Reel” and “Dennis Watson’s”) really propels the tunes with wild, burbly energy in support of Shannon and Matt Heaton. He shows up again in a few places; he provides an interesting contrast to Heaton and Gilchrist on the last track, a set of reels (“Hornless Cow” and “Boil the Breakfast Early”).

There are three more pensive tunes, as well, all of them Heaton’s own, including the delicate “Blue Dress Waltz,” one of the highlights of the CD. Gilchrist begins the tune, with Heaton joining a couple of verses in. It’s a lovely dance, a perfect pairing of two very complementary instruments and styles. “Blue Dress Waltz” is dedicated to all the fans who supported the recording on Kickstarter.com.

Two other pieces by Heaton, “Nights on Caledonia Terrace” (a slow air) and “Frost Place” (a slow reel) are especially lovely and show off her talent and sensitivity. She’s one of the leading wood flute players in the world, and these tunes help illustrate why she is held in such high regard.

All told, this is music played with a sure hand and faithfulness to the tradition, aided by a strong supporting cast. Together with Flook frontman Brian Finnegan’s earlier “The Ravishing Genius of Bones,” “The Blue Dress” is one of the most impressive and most completely realized albums of the year.

November 24, 2010 by
Music

Another Successful Benefit for St. Malachy’s

Musician Billy McComiskey shows off the art work presented to each of the musicians.

Musician Billy McComiskey shows off the art work presented to each of the musicians.

Nearly 1,000 people filled the pews at St. Malachy’s Church in North Philadelphia on Sunday for the annual “Mick Moloney and Friends” concert that benefits St. Malachy’s School, an independent Catholic school that educates more than 200 minority children in a parish that was once Irish.

The families of many former parishioners return to St. Malachy’s every year to hear folklorist Moloney tell stories and jokes and play the traditional music that the parish’s founders—a group of Irish immigrants and the Sisters of Mercy– listened to in the late 1800s when St. Malachy’s was the “little church in the woods.”

This year, the Galway-born Moloney, who is professor of music and Irish studies at New York University, brought friends Billy McComiskey (accordian), Dana Lyn (fiddle), and Jerry O’Sullivan (uillean pipes), along with Saul Broudy on guitar and vocals with Dennis Gormley, one-half of McDermott’s Handy, on electric guitar. Also on hand: Pastor Kevin Lawrence and retired pastor John McNamee, along with student Jalesaa Figueroa, a 2007 graduate of St. Malachy’s who is now a senior at Little Flower High School.

Figueroa, who lives with her disabled grandmother, threw herself a benefit concert and dinner this year to cover her last year’s tuition at Little Flower. A soloist in St. Malachy’s choir, Figueroa was the star of that particular benefit—and she came to St. Malachy’s benefit to tell the audience that she owed everything to the school that needed their help.

November 9, 2010 by
Music

Five Questions for Dana Lyn

When Mick Moloney and friends take the stage (or altar) at the annual benefit concert for St. Malachy’s School, Dana Lyn usually is one of the guests. There’s no one sitting up there who isn’t gifted, but Lyn’s gifts are pretty interesting.

She’s classically trained, with a degree in violin performance from Oberlin. At some point, one of her numerous online bios says, she “took a left turn” and was drawn to Irish music. The reality, though, is that her career has taken, and continues to take, many turns.

Her own MySpace bio is mind-blowing: She’s played Carnegie Hall. She was cast as an onstage musician in the Public theatre’s production of “Hamlet.” She focuses on string arranging and composition. Her musical associations include The Green Fields of America, Dionne Werewolf, Bach Reformed and the Yeti String Quartet. And I could go on and on, but I invite you to read the whole thing for yourself: http://www.myspace.com/danalynfiddle

Another one of those bios notes that “Dana was born in Los Angeles in 1974 to Taiwanese parents.” Lyn is one more of those non-Irish who has fallen head over heels for Irish music, enriching the tradition in ways that the old guys back in Clare and Sligo never could have predicted. (Pretty sure they’d like it, though.)

Dana Lyn is one very busy musician, but we managed to snag her for a quick five questions. Here’s what she had to say.

Q. How did you come to be in a Pogues cover band, and how did that influence your interest in Irish music?

A. I was in a Pogues cover band in college. We played once a year, at St. Patrick’s Day. We thought it was a good idea to put a few instrumentals in the set, so we learned a few sets off an Altan record and that got me started. More importantly, Miles Krassen was the Judaic Studies professor at my college; he edited a version of O’Neills and is a fiddle player. He introduced me to recordings of Michael Coleman.

Q. You’re certainly not the only non-Irish musician to play Irish music. What is there about Irish music, do you think, that speaks to people from a non-Irish background?

A. That is a difficult question to answer if you’re speaking about the music itself, as an abstract, or a group of notes played in a certain way. Generally, I am attracted to music that either challenges or comforts. I know that I was attracted to Irish music largely because the context in which it is played was so different from the musical context I had grown up with; it was informal, community-based, and relaxed. Also I was intrigued by listening to music played on my instrument in such a different way than I was used to.

Q. Once you discovered this interest, how hard was it to get into the scene?

A. I never really thought about getting into a “scene.” All I wanted to do was listen to the music and learn tunes. So I went wherever there was a session, and lurked about, really; listening most of the time, especially in the first few years.

Q. Who did you study with, and did you spend a lot of time honing your skill in sessions?

A. I didn’t study with anyone. I listened to a lot of records—everything I could get my hands on, and a lot of field recordings and tapes of sessions. I spent a lot of time at home practicing and analyzing the recordings I liked the most. I spent a lot of time at sessions, of course, but in terms of ‘honing skills’ and learning—it was more about practicing at home in a quiet space, and playing with a few people whose music I loved.

Q. You have a degree in violin performance, you have a classical background … and you play Irish music. How unusual is that kind of musical cross-pollination, really?

A. I suppose people find it unusual—or perhaps impractical—that I decided to delve so deeply into Irish music after having spent so many years playing classical music. I like playing ‘art’ music and I also like to play ‘folk’ music, both for different reasons. I don’t think I would be musically fulfilled if I did just one or the other. It makes a lot of sense to me, and life is too short to just limit yourself to one way of doing things.

Q. You’ve been involved in other projects outside of the classical. I’ve known classical musicians who have always and only played classical. How do you explain your diverse musical interests?

A. My childhood hero was Ludwig van Beethoven, because he played the piano, the violin, and the viola, and was a conductor, an improviser, and of course a composer. It makes sense to me that to experience music fully, and to be a musician (which is all I have ever wanted to be), one would have to know it from all angles. So…. I play the piano, the violin, the viola; I play classical music, I play traditional Irish music, I back singer-songwriters, I work as a string arranger, I can improvise, and I spend a lot of time writing (and erasing) music. Maybe I have ADD or something. Probably.

November 4, 2010 by