Most people wouldn’t take an encounter with a vicious predator and turn it into music—especially music of such a high quality that it merits exposure at Carnegie Hall.
Sean Kennedy isn’t most people.
An accomplished percussionist and Upper Dublin School District music teacher, Kennedy recalls the moment back in August 2001 when he was snorkeling off the coast of Maui and he noticed a barracuda swimming alongside him, just a few feet away.
Grand opening!
Marcie McComb of Broomall had her three young daughters in tow at the grand opening last Saturday of the brand new home of the McDade Cara School of Irish Dance in Edgmont. Her middle daughter, Riley, five, was signing up. “She and her sister Morgan (7) went to the dance camps in April and Riley wanted to do it. And she’s good too. Riley really gets it.”
In fact, Riley seemed ready to go right then, swinging her hips and arms as the first reel played in one of several vast studios that are replacing the school’s two previous locations. A few lessons and those arms will be as still as tree trunks.
Organizer Bill Reid kept the rain out and the Irish in, all of them gathered under the big tent behind the Cannstatter Club in Northeast Philadelphia.
Deborah Streeter-Davitt of MacDougall’s Irish Victory Cakes
Saturday was the first of two days celebrating all things Irish, with a raft of performers, including Deirdre Reilly,the Bogside Rogues, Belfast Connection, The Hooligans and the Fitzpatrick Dancers, plus lots of vendors hawking jewelry, T-shirts, whiskey cakes and scones.
There was a big dance floor in front of the stage, and although there weren’t a lot of dancers, those who stepped up did so with the enthusiasm dancers tend to have in buckets full.
We caught all of the action.
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The singers session if always a great way to ease into the Philadelphia Ceili Group Festival weekend. It’s quiet and reflective. Mostly.
That is, it was reflective until harper Ellen Tepper sat down at her instrument and sang a hysterical little ditty called “The Pope.” Or something like that. (Video of somebody else singing it here.) As emcee Terry Kane (and frequent partner with Tepper as one part of the duo “The Jameson Sisters) put it, “That’s a hard act to follow.” So she didn’t bother. Time for intermission.
But make no mistake. Some of the area’s best singers did hold forth was some of the sweetest songs you’ll hear, including Matt Ward, who—deviating from his usual repertoire—offered up some rebel songs. Not the kind that will make you want to storm Long Kesh, but more contemplative songs that honored Ireland’s long quest for independence.
Girsa at the Irish Center on Saturday
Got festival fever? We do! There are a bunch of them this month, including the Philadelphia Ceili Group’s annual Irish traditional music event at the Irish Center in Philadelphia, which started on Thursday with singers’ night and ends on Saturday with music, workshops, kids’ activities, and a concert in the evening by the all-girl band, Girsa.
And that’s not all. There’s the Northeast Philly Irish Festival on Saturday featuring Irish country singer Deirdre Reilly, the Bogside Rogues, Timlin and Kane, the Hooligans, Celtic Connection, Belfast Connection and Oliver McElhone, all at Canstatters in the Northeast.
There are still tickets available to hear Diamh, an exciting band from Scotland, at the Alapocas Run State Park in Wilmington on Thursday.
Flyers alum Bernie Parent does a meet-and-greet.
Boston’s Ken Casey, front man for the Celtic rock band Dropkick Murphys, admitted the other night that he was leaning towards becoming a Philadelphia Flyers’ fan. In his neck of the woods–Bruins territory—that’s not just heresy but a potential cause for justifiable homicide.
But even the most devoted Bruins fan would have to bend a little just this once. The Flyers organization came out in force to support Casey’s Claddagh Foundation on Wednesday at the annual celebrity golf outing at Woodcrest Country Club in Cherry Hill, NJ. About a dozen current and former players joined foursomes—which went for $2,000—to play the William Flynn-designed 178-acre course. That included stogie-chewing, wisecracking Flyers alum Bernie Parent (”Only the Lord saves more than Bernie Parent”) and popular right winger and All-Star Jacub Voracek, a Czech native, who allowed himself to be auctioned off (along with girlfriend Nicole Warneke) for a date night with a lucky bidder.
Hi, gang.
Here’s what’s what for the coming week as we head into a big month for local Irish (and Celts of all stripes).
Let’s start with Brittingham’s Irish Festival, Sunday starting at noon at Brittingham’s (of course) , 640 East Germantown Pike in Lafayette Hill. Be prepared for the long haul. After 7:30, the party continues inside and continues on into the night. Look for Jamison, Oliver McElhone, Five Quid and Bare Knuckled Boxers. Food, drink, dance, and fun for the kiddies, too.
Wednesday at 7:30, two Irish musical stars, piper Cillian Vallely (of Lunasa) and his concertina-playing brother Niall, perform in a house concert sponsored by the Barn Star Concert Series. It’s a cozy little space on Bainbridge Street in Philly, and tickets are limited. Contact the organizer to reserve a space: barnstarconcerts@gmail.com. More details on Barn Star’s Facebook page. Tickets are 20 bucks. You can bring drinks or goodies to share. You don’t have to, but it really adds to the fun.
Kathy DeAngelo and Dennis Gormley
Emma Gormley was kicking to the beat of the bodhran in utero, laying as an infant at the foot of her mother’s harp, and up on stage at the age of three singing the Irish folk song, “Johnny Todd,” to a huge audience for which her musician parents, Dennis Gormley and Kathy DeAngelo, were providing “the background music.”
DeAngelo laughs as she recalls the moment. “They weren’t paying any attention to us as they drank their glasses of wine, then suddenly, when they heard this big voice coming out of this little girl, they started listening. Dennis said to me, ‘She’s going to be just like you!”
When Emma took up the violin at school, her parents weren’t surprised. Between them, they play a full orchestra’s worth of instruments. Kathy is a self-taught guitarist, fiddler, and harper who also plays mandolin and banjo; Dennis plays anything with strings, flute and whistle. The entire family sings. They occasionally perform together. (See a photo of the whole family below.)
Kathy and Dennis, who met when they were college students in New Jersey in 1973, have been the Irish trad duo (and sometimes trio, with other performers), McDermott’s Handy since 1978. They have two CDs, the latest of which is “Bound for Amerikay: The Irish Emigrant Experience: Coming to America as Told Through Music, Song & Story.” They recorded and mixed it in their own basement studio.
Their lives have been steeped in music. But in 1997, when Emma was 10, her parents thought she needed a group of kids her own age to play with. Then that year, a friend who was director of the Garden State Discovery Museum in Cherry Hill asked DeAngelo if some of her and Dennis’s students could play Irish music during multicultural month celebrations. They rounded up a few kids, asked friend and fellow music teacher Chris Brennan-Hagy of Philadelphia to bring some of hers, and booked Tom Slattery, an Irish storyteller, for the event. “This is how things always happen,” says DeAngelo. “You think, okay, this will be easy!”