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Coatesville Traditional Irish Music Series

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Irish Music With a German Accent

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Anyone who has ever traveled to Ireland knows that German tourists love the Emerald Isle as much as Americans do. (I can remember bumping into a tour bus full of Germans on holiday at the Poulnabrone Dolmen, an ancient tomb out in the middle of one of Ireland’s most remote places, the Burren.)

So from the perspective of Tina Eck, who hails from Travemünde, a seaside resort along the border with Denmark, it is not at all unusual that she plays Irish flute, and is part of a popular duo called Lilt. The traditional twosome, which also features Irish bouzouki and tenor banjo player Keith Carr, is scheduled to play Sunday, November 18, as part of the Coatesville Traditional Irish Music Series. (Note to readers: This concert has been canceled.)

Eck, who now lives in Cabin John, Maryland, works as a radio correspondent covering Washington. She moved to the United States to work for Voice of America in September 1992, around the time of Bill Clinton’s election to the presidency. She had traveled to Ireland several times over the years, so she was familiar with Celtic culture. The music, not so much.

Then, one night in the mid-1990s, Eck visited the well-known Connecticut Avenue watering hole Nanny O’Brien’s, where a traditional Irish music session was going full blast.

“Nanny O’Brien’s was a hangout for journalists. You’d sit and drink, and talk politics. It was the first time I had ever heard an Irish session. It was completely mesmerizing.”

Eck resolved to do whatever she needed to do to be a part of that session. She started to teach herself tin whistle, soaking up tunes at the feet of guitarist, session leader and Nanny O’Brien’s owner Brian Gaffney, and others.

“I hadn’t played a musical instrument since I was in 4th grade,” Eck recalls. “I learned a bit of recorder then. But with Irish music, it was unbelievable that you could just sit behind a piper, and pick it all up by ear. You didn’t need to read music. I still can read music a little, but Irish music is truly accessible. You learn the music from your friends. That’s part of the appeal … the whole social thing, you know?”

Eck never did have formal lessons, though she did pick up bits and pieces from other whistle players. At that point, she was content to just keep tootling along on her whistle. But it wasn’t all that long before some of the other players were suggesting that she just might like the Irish wooden flute.

“Everybody said I should, Eck says. “I didn’t want to as I was really happy with the whistle. Then, one night, one of the flute players brought an old Casey Burns flute to the session—it was in a long green woolen sock—and he said, ‘Hold onto it as long as you like, and learn this.'”

It wasn’t long before Eck found herself banging out tunes on the flute. She says she was highly influenced by one of the best Irish flute players on the planet. “I complete idolized Seamus Egan (of the band Solas). To be able to play like him would be so great. That really motivated me.”

As with whistle, Eck learned flute in dribs and drabs from other players. She recalls in particular an informal—really informal—lesson from the great Galway-born Mike Rafferty.

“I asked him, ‘How you play a roll?” and he said ‘You just wiggle your fingers.” End of lesson.

Eck followed up with frequent trips to Ireland to pick the brains of the best at the Willie Clancy, Frankie Kennedy and Sligo summer schools. All of that learning was having the desired effect. She was getting good, and becoming known.

Eck’s musical partnership with Keith Carr—which would lead to the formation of Lilt—began in 2009, and quite by accident. Eck had booked a funeral, lining up guitarist Zan McLeod to accompany her, but McLeod dropped out at the last minute. Eck knew Carr from the Nanny O’Brien session, so she asked him to accompany her, and she quickly discovered that she and this talented bouzouki player were a good musical fit for each other.

“I think it was in the fall of 2009 that we started playing together more,” Eck recalls. “And in 2010, we went into the studio to record a few things, just for fun. I remember, it was in the middle of a blizzard. We sat down for a few hours, and we played what we liked to play.”

Eck didn’t everything on the recording, but she says Capital-area Irish music aficionados had a different opinion. “I think we made 500 copies of that first demo. People loved it. They were just ripping the CDs from our fingers.”

At that point, it became clear that Eck and Carr should formalize their partnership. Then came the question of a name, but Eck had actually thought about that even before a band of any kind became a possibility.

“My husband actually came up with the name ‘Lilt,” says Eck. “He said, if you ever have a group, why don’t you call yourselves ‘Lilt’?” That name stuck with Keith and me, and we began to play together more regularly.”

As to the question of what to play, the answer was obvious: dance music. As she had progressed, Eck had been invited to play in ceili bands. She remembers it being a challenge: “I could barely keep up.” But soon she settled in, and discovered a whole new reason to enjoy playing Irish music, and in particular, a preferred style of play for the then-new duo Lilt.

“I love playing for dances. The dancers fill in all the blanks. I think a hornpipe can sound a little dorky all by itself, but as soon as you have shoes pounding out the rhythm, that’s when the music has lift and energy. So Lilt now is the quintessential dance band. We still do play for dances, but sometimes in performances, we also have step dancers and sean nos (old style) dancers. Not in every tune, not in every piece, but when the dancers get going, it’s not only a crowd pleaser. I get goose bumps.”

You can get your own goose bumps by snagging a ticket for the Coatesville concert.

November 2, 2012 by
Music

Musical Experimentation Is All In the Family

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Cillian and Niall Vallely

Maybe you have to really know Irish music, in the way that you know breathing and heartbeat, before you can begin to take creative liberties with it.

For uilleann piper Cillian Vallely, perhaps best known for his work with the exceptional Celtic fusion band Lúnasa, the seed of experimentation was planted early on.

First came learning Irish music in its purest form at a school known as the Armagh Pipers Club, following in the footsteps of both his father Brian, a piper, and his mother Eithne, a fiddler. Brian Vallely is the club’s director; Eithne, director of music.

“When my father started playing, there wasn’t a whole lot of Irish music at all, and there weren’t a lot of pipers in Ireland,” Vallely explains. And that was the main reason why his father and several other pipers started the club in 1966, he says. “It was a real mission they were on, to keep the music going. For political and cultural reasons, Irish music was almost underground. It was looked down upon then. People were almost embarrassed by it.”

The club gave the early members the opportunity to teach themselves, even as they taught their first pupils.

Vallely remembers trooping off to the club with his sister and three brothers once a week, all of them starting out on whistle, and eventually taking up different instruments. (In spite of the club’s name, it wasn’t all pipers and piping.)

“My father tried us all on the pipes, but they (his siblings) let it go,” Vallely says. “I remember my mother trying to teach me the fiddle. I remember not liking it. I started the pipes when I was 8. I think it was just a case of liking the pipes.”

In retrospect, he laughs, “My life would have been simpler if I’d learned the fiddle.”

As obsessed with traditional Irish music as the Vallelys were, all were expected to branch out in another direction: in this case, classical music. Eithne Vallely was also a music teacher, and Cillian Vallely learned to play flute and saxophone. This is where the Vallely kids began to take a broader view.

“I was probably never just playing Irish music,” says Vallely. “My parents were never too narrow-minded about the music. They were never saying to us that there is only one way to play. We were never above doing other stuff, playing other styles. My mother put together arrangements that, when I look back on it, were pretty modern.”

At the same time, Vallely recalls, he began to be heavily influenced by the Bothy Band, the Chieftains, Moving Hearts, and Planxty, all of which were known for pioneering innovations.

In the end, it was probably a surprise to no one who knew him that Cillian Vallely’s career would take him in many non-traditional directions. And then, in 1999, came an opportunity to play with the band with which he is most often identified.

“I had been playing professionally about four years before Lunasa came along,” Vallely says. “Lunasa was already up and running when they asked me to join. I understood where they were coming from. Their music made total sense to me—that’s what I wanted to play.”

At the same time, Vallely continued to explore other musical collaborations, including the Celtic Jazz Collective, Riverdance, and the New York-based band known as Whirligig.

Perhaps not surprisingly, his collaborations are more familial, as witness his upcoming Delaware Valley concerts with brother Niall on concertina.

“Me and Niall are less than two years apart, but we’ve been playing together since I was 10. He understands piping, and he understands my music. We play different instruments and we only play together maybe twice a year, but we both like the same kinds of music, and we are playing the same style in a lot of ways. His concertina style has been affected by piping. Neither of us have to travel to0 far to play well with each other. “

You have two opportunities to judge for yourself. The Vallelys will appear in a house concert in Voorhees, N.J., on Wednesday, September 26, and on the concert stage at the Coatesville Traditional Irish Music Series on Sunday, September 30. Do yourself a favor, and go to both.

 

September 21, 2012 by
Music

For Jerry O’Sullivan, Musical Success Is All Relative

Jerry O'Sullivan, playing at a recent musical benefit at St. Malachy's Church.

Jerry O'Sullivan, playing at a recent musical benefit at St. Malachy's Church.

Maybe Jerry O’Sullivan would have grown up to be one of the world’s premier uilleann pipers, no matter what. Perhaps he would have popped up on more than 90 albums, played around the world in small spaces and symphonic halls alike, and performed with some of the best musicians on the planet propelled by nothing more than his native talent.

Still, you have to wonder whether O’Sullivan’s journey to the top of trad ever would have happened, were it not for the influence of one retiring but very important man—O’Sullivan’s maternal grandfather.

Andrew Duffy was born in 1899 in Killasser, County Mayo, a townland near Swinford, County Mayo. He emigrated to the New York area in the 1920s. He returned to Ireland only once in his life, in 1963.

Still, Ireland never left him. The traditions and music of Andrew Duffy’s homeland always figured prominently in his life, and he passed them along to Jerry O’Sullivan.

Because of the illness of his mother Frances, much of O’Sullivan’s childhood and early adolescence was spent under the roof of Andrew and Pauline Nolan Duffy in Yonkers. Every Sunday, after Mass, O’Sullivan and his grandfather settled in to listen to Irish music albums.

“He grew up with Irish music and and danced to it when he was a young man,” recalls O’Sullivan. “He had a good ear; his taste was my taste. I was the only member of the family who would sit and listen to it with him.

“I’m sure it meant a lot to him that I listened with him. He was a quiet type of man; he didn’t say too much. if he did say something, it was important. Listening to music was just something we did. I’m sure he liked having my company.”

O’Sullivan credits some of the LPs in his grandfather’s collection with starting him on his way. He recalls one album in particular, recorded in 1962, “The Traditional Dance Music of Ireland” with Peter Carberry and Sean Ryan, a bare-bones pairing of uilleann pipes chanter and fiddle. It made his ears perk up whenever he heard that LP—and he started hearing it at a young age, 4 or 5 years old. O’Sullivan has made a lifelong study of piping and players, but that recording, he admits, influences him still.

It wasn’t until a bit later in his young life that his interest became a full-blown passion. O’Sullivan spent time, off and on, summering and spending holidays with relatives in Ireland. It was during one stay in Dublin at his maternal great uncle Jack Nolan’s house that he became enmeshed in the local traditional music scene.

In this he was helped along by another relative, cousin Tom Dermody, who played button accordion. “He started taking me around to Irish music sessions, and at one a session in the North end I got to really see uilleann pipes up close for the first time, and to talk to the piper for a while.”

Around this time, he was also introduced to piper and renowned pipe maker Matt Kiernan, a retired Garda. O’Sullivan haunted Kiernan’s house at 19 Offaly Road, and ultimately Kiernan was persuaded to make O’Sullivan’ first set of pipes.

Later, after he acquired his pipes, he says, “I started playing with (cousin) Tom; he was somebody I felt comfortable with. Having the experience of playing with him made it more comfortable to play with other people.”

In his travels around Dublin, he also had the opportunity to hear or chat with many of the greats of uilleann piping. including Carberry, Fergus Finnegan and Gay McKeon. When you hear him play today, you might assume he took years of lessons. But that wasn’t the way it was. Most of what he learned came from hearing those pipers and many others, just soaking it all in. It was the old watch, listen and play approach.

“Going back 30-35 years ago, I did have a couple of lessons (with Peter McKenna), but it just wasn’t my experience,” O’Sullivan says. “It was osmosis. It was more listening to the pipes, and some of it was reading articles and books on the subject. There was no formal student-teacher relationship with any one individual.”

For O’Sullivan it was a natural way to learn. By the time he started playing, he had already listened to many recordings of uilleann pipers, he says, “so I knew in my head how it should sound, and that was a huge help.”

Back in New York, he learned more—”a little bit here and a little bit there”—from the great Bill Ochs. Still, he learned most by listening, just as he absorbed every note from his grandfather’s albums.

Actually, in retrospect, those LPs might inspired a very different musical career path. And once again, you have to wonder: What if?

“I always loved listening to the uilleann pipes, but the fiddle was my first choice. (Unfortunately) I didn’t have the contacts with any fiddle players in those days. I wasn’t successful at finding a fiddle instructor,” he recalls.

Once again, the timely intervention of a family member steered O’Sullivan in the direction of uilleann pipes. “My grandmother suggested I join a highland pipe band,” he says. “I did that for a year or two. It was fun for the camaraderie, but musically it was frustrating. The desire to learn uilleann pipes took hold after that. I just thought that as a really neat sounding instrument. There was always something beautiful about the sound. The mechanical end of things was, for a young guy, also appealing. There was a lot of hardware … but that was a secondary thing. The primary thing was just having that sound in my head.”

“I love the fiddle,” he says, looking back on his Irish traditional musical journey. “But I’m glad I picked the uilleann pipes.”

If you haven’t heard O’Sullivan, you can find out for yourself why he made the right choice. (He’s also a dazzling player of Irish wood flute, tin whistle, the low whistle, the highland pipes and the Scottish smallpipes.) O’Sullivan is playing in concert at the Coatesville Traditional Irish Music Series, Sunday, January 30 at 8 p.m. There’s also a preconcert piping workshop. For details, visit http://www.ctims.info/

January 23, 2011 by
Music

Five Questions for Breanndán Begley

Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and Breanndán Begley

Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and Breanndán Begley

There is a ruggedness and a wildness to the West of Ireland. To Breanndán Begley, one of he most accomplished two-row button accordion artists in the world, it’s only natural that the music of the region should match its terrain.

West Kerry, where Begley makes his home, is also part of Ireland’s Gaeltacht—an Irish-speaking region. So if West Kerry music seems to have a slightly different flavor from, say, the music of the heartland, that ancient language wields its own influence, too, says Begley.

Begley appears with his playing partner Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh (kwee-veen o-Rye-a-lah) in two Philly-area concerts this weekend, the first, at the Coatesville Traditional Irish Music Series Saturday night at 8, and the second Sunday night at 8 at the Philadelphia Irish Center. (Details on our calendar.) To Begley, his Gaeltacht roots are a point of pride, and he clearly exults in the sound of the popular West Kerry dance music.

We tracked him down last week as he and Ó Raghallaigh made their way along the tour route that would bring them to our front door.

Q. To a lot of people, Irish music is Irish music. For the uninitiated, what is Kerry music and how is it different?

A. First of all, musically Ireland is a very big place and Kerry just has a dialect of its own. Even within the dialects, there are variations as well. In Kerry (for example), there would be the West Kerry style, which would have its own little differences. (West Kerry music) is more for dancing, first and foremost—slides, polkas and reels, for example. The dancing would be a very important
thing. You (also) have a lot of variety in Kerry music. Airs are valued in a session.

West Kerry is a rugged place, and the music reflects that. The music in the middle of the country is very different. The ruggedness in the music is (expressed) in the ornamentation. It’s something you wouldn’t shy away from. It’s a part of the sound within the sound. It’s rugged and lively—it’s everything.

Q. Your family background is musical, as it so often is when we interview Irish traditional artists. Have you ever stopped to ponder the old “nature/nurture” argument, and which is it?

A. It’s a mixture of all those things. I feel very lucky to be able to play like I do. It’s what I do best. It’s good that the background is there but it’s not necessary to be a great player. Breeding is better than feeding, they say, but I think it’s pure luck, really.

Q. Who taught you, and how did it influence your style of play?

A. I learned Irish music the same way I learned the language. My father played and sang. it was all around the place. Kids today have the computer; we had the accordion.

I never had any formal training. I don’t read music. It’s all by ear. It’s an oral tradition; it comes from the people. You didn’t even know you were playing music. All the musicians I knew in Kerry, none of them read music.

Q. You sing as well as play. Did one evolve later than the other, or did they come about more or less concurrently?

A. We did it (sang) all the time, more or less. I find the bridge between a Gaelic speaker and a musician is bridged by the singing. When you sing you’re doing both. In my youth there was hardly any radio. The only music you heard was live. The singing was live.

I didn’t really start singing on stage until the band Beginish (one of the notable ensembles to which he has belonged; another is Boys of the Lough) was formed. We didn’t have a singer so I started singing. I really love it. I love the songs.

The older I get, the more important I think the language is. The Irish language goes back farther than anything we have. It’s a living art form. It predates any of our poetry, and I’m sure a form of Gaelic was spoken by the Newgrange people. (In singing) I’m speaking my first language. In West Kerry youre never asked to “sing” a sing. You’re asked to “say” a song.

Q. How does collaborating with other musicians, which you’ve certainly done a lot, influence your play? How does playing with Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh influence you?

A. In Boys of the Lough, I didn’t try to put my own stamp on it., (although) when it came to a solo, I’d do it exactly the way I wanted to do it myself. With Beginish, in one way it was easier because it was all Irish musicans. It was a kind of a melting pot playing with them.

I can safely sayer that I find so much freedom playing with Caoimhín. Music with him is definitely music of the moment. There’s a plan, but rarely do we ever do exactly like the plan. If you do anything else, you’re going by memory, or you’re doing an imitation of what sounded good last night. No two nights are the same, with Caoimhín and me together. It’s a great feeling playing with Caoimhín. Do I get bored? Never! Tired? Maybe.

October 15, 2010 by
Music

A Weekend of Great Irish Tunes

John Brennan and John McGillian

John Brennan and John McGillian

When it comes to hearing great Irish music, some weeks it is a very good thing indeed to be in Philadelphia. Last weekend was one of those times.

On Friday, May 21, the Philadelphia Ceili Group brought together some of the best musicians around for the Festival Benefit Concert at the Irish Center.

Paddy O’Neill played slow airs! And sang! John Brennan performed some gorgeous tunes that he’s composed. Caitlin Finley played Sligo fiddle tunes. John McGillian and his accordion were brilliant. Tim Hill got to pipe. Judy Brennan accompanied on the keyboard. And Paraic Keane closed the evening with unforgettable fiddling.

And there’s a little town called Coatesville, about an hour’s drive from Philadelphia—perhaps an hour and a half, should you make a wrong turn or two—where Frank Dalton lures some of the biggest names to play for the Coatesville Traditional Irish Music Series, at the Coatesville Cultural Society. Last Sunday, Kevin Burke and Cal Scott filled Frank’s cozy concert hall with the kind of music that makes your heart smile and your feet dance.

His initial goal was to sell 50 tickets to be able to offer the concert; he far surpassed that number. What’s that? You weren’t able to make it to either of those events, but now you really wish you had? It is a lucky day, indeed then, for the Irish, because irishphiladelphia.com has some videos for you!

Here they are (and there are a lot):

May 26, 2010 by
Music

The First Fireworks of Summer

Gerry O'Beirne and Rosie Shipley

Gerry O'Beirne and Rosie Shipley

You know that old saying about “the elephant in the room,” and how it usually refers to the big, bad thing that no one wants to acknowledge?

Well, Gerry O’Beirne’s “Elephant”—his pet name for a gorgeous, one-of-a-kind guitar hand-crafted by Ithaca instrument artisan Dan Hoffman—truly is a big, bad beastie. In O’Beirne’s hands, you can’t help but acknowledge its powerful presence.

He manages to wring every last ounce of musical expression out of his smudged and well-worn Martin 12-string, too.

In concert with Baltimore fiddler Rosie Shipley Saturday night at the Coatesville Cultural Center, O’Beirne coaxed all manner of unearthly sounds from those two guitars—slithery slides, deep and resonant drones, and glittering harmonics. Throughout the night, O’Beirne at various times channeled blues man Robert Johnson, classical artist Andres Segovia, Dobro master Jerry Douglas, and even one-hit zitherist (“The Third Man”) Anton Karas—sometimes, all in the same tune.
With the Elephant, O’Beirne offered a delicately nuanced interpretation of his tune, “Western Highway,” previously recorded both by Maura O’Connell and DANÚ lead singer Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh (who was to have been the headliner before she was waylaid by laryngitis). Wielding the 12-string, O’Beirne’s dazzling performance of another tune, “Long Beating Wing,” left the audience practically breathless.

O’Beirne managed to top even those fireworks with virtuoso performances on, of all things, a ukulele. Don Ho must have been spinning in his grave. Tiny bubbles, my arse.

With all of this praise for Gerry O’Beirne, you might wonder whether Rosie Shipley was even in the room. No need to wonder. This one-time student of master fiddler Brendan Mulvilhill did her old teacher proud.

Shipley plays with power, poise and no small measure of daring. With O’Beirne at her side, she’s an unstoppable and potently creative force. One example: Shipley’s up-tempo interpretation of Carolan’s Concerto, traditionally performed in a pretty, subdued baroque style.

As a teen, Shipley studied at the Gaelic College of Celtic Arts and Crafts in Nova Scotia. (Where, she adds, she also wove tartans and made out with boys in kilts.) Thank goodness for the Scots influence, because she treated the audience to a couple of lovely strathspeys, which you don’t often hear in traditional Irish performances.

Likewise, Shipley and O’Beirne drew on non-Irish influences to close out the night with a set of tunes from the American South: “There Ain’t No Whiskey in This Town” and “Cluck Old Hen.” On the latter, the fiddle strings were smokin’. (And O’Beirne’s uke rang out like a banjo.)

Did we miss Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh? Of course, but in another way the loss was also our good fortune as these two superb musicians ably and satisfyingly filled the breach.

June 19, 2007 by