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Father Joseph Kelley is the People’s Choice

Father Joseph Kelley

Father Joseph Kelley

Among the South Philly Review’s 2012 Readers’ Choice award winners:

Termini Brothers for cannolis, John’s on East Snyder Avenue for roast pork sandwiches, the South Philadelphia Tap Room for the best selection of craft beers, and Father Joseph J. Kelley of St. Monica’s at 17th and Ritner for top priest or minister.

Kelley’s name bubbled to the surface in the section of the Readers’ Choice award balloting devoted to the neighborhood’s favorite people, a short list that included the likes of civic leader Barbara Capozzi and local DJ Johnny Looch.

Kelley confesses he’s flattered, but he kiddingly suggests that with so many relatives scattered throughout South Philadelphia, he had an unfair advantage.

“I grew up with these people,” he laughs. “My life is an open book. There can’t be any surprises there.”

Kelley’s boyhood home was at 933 Pierce Street, on the other side of Broad Street from St. Monica’s, in St. Nicholas of Tolentine parish. The neighborhood is a well-known blend of nationalities, with Italians and Irish figuring prominently. Kelley’s family tree sprouts off in both directions. His father’s name was John, and the Kelley family roots go back to County Monaghan; his mother, Phillomena, was a Coppola. Consequently, Kelley grew up with both traditions.

Kelley’s parish likewise is a marriage of two great European Catholic communities. For most of its early history, St. Monica’s was stoutly Irish, with pastors named McManus, Timmins, Walsh and Farrell. Their portraits hang in the hallway of St. Monica’s rectory. Relics of the parish’s Irish past aren’t hard to find. There’s a monument in memory of Monsignor Aloysius F.X. Farrell along the 17th Street side of the church. Farrell led a hugely ambitious rebuilding project following a catastrophic fire in the 1970s. Just a few steps away stands a blue historical marker honoring light-heavyweight boxing champ Tommy Loughran, the “Philly Phantom,” who grew up nearby.

The parish is mostly Italian now, though there are still plenty of Irish in the mix.

Kelley, resplendent in his flowing cassock, is tall, with dark, curly hair. His features seem to favor the Coppola side of the family. On the day we meet, he’s looking forward to an annual get-together with siblings, nieces and nephews in which they will spend hours baking Easter ham pies, some of which will be shipped overnight to South Philly exiles now living in Florida.

Kelley has been a priest for nearly 25 years, and for 21 of those years he has been posted in Philadelphia. “That’s very uncommon,” he says. Early assignments included Sacred Heart at 3rd and Reed, and St. Edmonds at 21st and Snyder. In 1999, he was named principal of Archbishop Wood High School in Warminster.

He was thrilled when, in 2003, Cardinal Bevilaqua assigned him to be pastor of St. Monica’s. “It was just after Ash Wednesday, and I got a call that the cardinal wanted to see me,” he says. Kelley surmised that a new assignment was in the offing, but he had no inkling what was to come next. A friend and fellow priest guessed Kelley was going to be sent to St. Monica’s, but he didn’t believe it. Then, when the cardinal offered him the pastorship of this vibrant South Philadelphia faith community, he recalls, “My jaw hit the floor; I was absolutely stunned.”

Although Kelley enjoyed his time in the Bucks county ‘burbs, he’s grateful to be back in his old stomping grounds.

“I’m a city kid,” he says. “I’m green. I never use a car. I take the subway, or I walk.”

It’s not hard to see how Kelley was the people’s choice. He seems to know everyone. As he stands on the stone steps in front of the church, he sees a young man walking down Ritner from 17th. “Hey, how’s your mom?” Kelley calls out. “You’re coming for Palm Sunday, aren’t you?” A warm and friendly conversation ensues.

The Readers’ Choice award took Kelley completely by surprise, he says, and left him with a feeling of deep gratitude.

“I grew up with these people. I’m related to these people. When you love a place so much, and you love a people so much, it’s good to know you’re loved back.”

April 6, 2012 by
People

Five Questions With Martin Hayes

Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill

Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill

There’s Irish music with trombones, Irish music with Bruce Springsteen lyrics, and then there’s Irish music played on traditional instruments and not all that different from what you might have heard by the fireside anywhere in County Clare a hundred years ago.

The old stuff is as pure as the wind rustling across the Burren, as raw as peat smoke. Fiddler Martin Hayes, himself from Maghera, East Clare, knows this territory all too well. He easily and lightly treads the well-worn path. He’s equally familiar with some of the more experimental applications of the tradition, to be sure. With his frequent collaborator guitarist Dennis Cahill, he formed the band Midnight Court in the 1980s, a melding of rock and jazz. But it’s the pure drop, as the old-style music is sometimes called, that Martin Hayes plans to celebrate as he, together with six talented colleagues, appear April 15 at the Annenberg Center in the “Masters of Tradition” concert.

If you’re going, you’ll hear some of the finest musicians Ireland has to offer. In addition to Hayes: David Power on uilleann pipes; singer Iarla Ó Lionáird; Cathal Hayden, fiddle; accordionist Máirtín O’Connor; and Seamie O’Dowd and Dennis Cahill on guitar.

The “Masters of Tradition” concept has its roots in a long-running annual festival of traditional Irish music in Bantry, County Cork, in conjunction with West Cork Music, a classical music organization. Hayes is the artistic director of the Masters program. In 2009, Hayes was invited to bring the “masters” to Australia for concerts in the iconic Sydney Opera House. Still, the concept has never had an airing in the United States—until this year.

We interviewed Hayes by phone recently. He took the call in a parking lot in Galway; you could hear the breeze blowing. Here’s what he had to say about the concert tour and the music he loves so well.

Q. Tell me about the Masters of Tradition Festival, the one that happens in Bantry in late June-early July. I know it began in 2003. How did it get started, and what was your role?

A. It started in West Cork. In Bantry, each year there is this highly regarded chamber music festival. We were invited to play in the festival. They had been talking about doing something with traditional Irish music. It was an opportunity to play traditional music in an almost chamber music-like environment, in Bantry House. It’s one of Ireland’s big, old aristocratic gentry homes, a very, very large home, with wonderful acoustics and great warmth. A lot of the concerts take place there. We also play in the Church of Ireland in Bantry.

There’s a tradition of Irish music being played in the big old homes of Ireland, in the gentry houses, but in recent years we had never played in that context. The idea was to present the music in Bantry House with a lot of attention to detail, and nuanced.

Q. It seems to me that when you use the word “tradition,” you mean something very specific. First of all, how do you define that, and second, why is sticking to the tradition so important to you?

A. To define is not so easy. As somebody said, nobody can tell you what good traditional music is; they can only tell you what isn’t. I’m not looking for the rock and roll fusion, but I’m not opposed. There are few things I haven’t tried myself. Sometimes, with a musical form like this, you can experiment and experiment and experiment. But every once in a while, it’s good to retrench, to re-examine what you have, and start the cycle all over again.

Q. Is there room for everyone in the Irish music tent? What do you think when musicians take liberties?

A. I kind of don’t care, and one reason I don’t care is that, in the late ‘80s, there was I. I was trying to fuse Dixie Dregs into Irish music. I was playing with a fusion drummer at that time. Everybody ought to have the freedom to try everything they want.

Q. How and why did you decide to take the show on tour?

A. It was accidental. A number of years ago, when I was in Australia, I mentioned the festival to my agent. I didn’t say I wanted to do anything, but he mentioned the Sydney festival and the Sydney Opera House. They (the organizers) said, “Why don’t they come out and play at the festival?” I said “OK.” This opportunity doesn’t often come up. We ended up doing two nights, and it was a great success. Everybody said, “I want to do more of this.” So here we are doing a little more of it.

Q. What do you hope that audiences will get out of the Masters tour that they might not get from other Irish music performances or concerts? What would make you feel like you’d accomplished what you set out to do?

A. It’s kind of like an invitation back to the music again. It’s pressing the “reset” button, and we’ll go back and re-introduce you to the music. It’s not an intellectual exercise, but one in which you can experience the richness of the music in the raw form in which it has come. You get a very wide and comprehensive sense of what the music is all about.

April 5, 2012 by
Music

A Chieftains Blast From the Past

Matt Molloy, Paddy Moloney and Kevin Conneff

Matt Molloy, Paddy Moloney and Kevin Conneff

The Chieftains, one of the most revered of all Irish traditional music groups, will be in town for a concert at the Kimmel Center on Friday, March 9.

It seemed like a good excuse to resurrect two interviews with members of the band.

We chatted with band leader and uilleann piper Paddy Moloney just before the band's 2008 Kimmel show. (The Chieftains Go Caledonian.) That year, the band was highlighting the music of Scotland, and Moloney talked a good deal about that. He was the first non-Scot inducted into the Scots Traditional Musi

c Hall of Fame. But Moloney also talked about how he rose to prominence as an Irish musician—and how the Chieftains became the Chieftains.

A year later, Kevin Conneff took time to share his own story. (A Chat With the Chieftains' Kevin Conneff.) Conneff, who sings and plays bodhran for the band, joined the already well-known Chieftains in 1976. He planned on playing with the band for a year or two and then returning to work in a print shop. He'll be on stage on Friday, so you can see for yourself how that plan worked out.

We also want to remind you that Friday (March 2) is the last day of our Chieftains ticket contest. We have a pair of Kimmel show tickets to give away. All you have to do is:

Subscribe to our Mickmail weekly e-newsletter. (The signup box is in the right column.)

Or

If you already are a subscriber, forward Mickmail to a friend.

We'll pick the winner Saturday, March 3.

Click on the links below to read the interviews!

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February 28, 2012 by
People

A Generous Heart at the Heart of The Montco Parade

2012 Montgomery County Grand Marshal Jim Flood

2012 Montgomery County Grand Marshal Jim Flood

In its early years, the Ancient Order of Hibernians’ Notre Dame Division got to know the inside of firehouses pretty well. Launched in 1989, the Montgomery County division had no home of its own, so meetings were typically held within shouting distance of pumpers and ladder trucks.

Attorney Jim Flood joined the division in 1993, a couple of years after moving from Bucks to Montgomery County. Very active from the start, even as a relative newbie, he took an interest in the division’s continuing state of homelessness.

“We had always had a building fund, but it was raising very little money. So a group of us went out on a limb and hired the Wolfe Tones for a benefit concert. If that had failed, it would have been a huge disaster for us. Luckily, we raised $15,000.”

That large infusion of cash helped turn the dream of a home into a reality. The division bought the former Marine Corps League hall on Jefferson Street in Swedesburg, Upper Merion Township, in 1996. Spurred on by Flood, who was by then on the board of directors, together with other members, the division paid off the mortgage six years later.

That’s just one example of Jim Flood’s level of commitment. His fellow Hibernians can think of plenty more.

Flood spearheaded the division’s Catholic high school scholarship. He runs the golf outing. Outside of the division, he created a “Coats for Kids” drive that benefits poor children. He helps the needy by donating time to the Montgomery County Legal Aid Society and representing children through the Montgomery County Child Advocacy Project. Flood and his wife Helen have also raised funds to support their parish school (St. Helena’s), the CYO and the church construction.

Flood has a well-deserved reputation for being a “go-to” guy, and in recognition of his hard work and devotion, the division is going to him again: this time to ask him to serve as grand marshal of the 2012 Montgomery County St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

His selection came as a shock.

“I didn’t even know I’d been nominated. The division held a membership appreciation day on December 16, and my wife are I were there; that’s when I found out. During a break in the music, the chairman of the parade committee said ‘I’d like to announce the grand marshal for the 2012 parade.’ The he announced it was me. I was floored.”

Perhaps it was because Flood tends not to draw attention to his efforts that he was so surprised. His AOH brothers know that when it comes to good works, Flood is the kind of guy who takes to heart one of the key lessons of the Gospel, courtesy of Matthew 6:3: When you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. And maybe it’s because Flood appears not to think twice about helping his friends and those who are less fortunate than he; it’s just what you do. It’s not something you think about.

The coat drive is a good example of Flood’s charitable mindset. “We started ‘Coats for Kids’ when my son Will, who is now a junior in high school, had a fifth grade service project,” Flood recalls. “I tried to teach him that a lot of kids don’t just wear coats during the day to keep them warm; they also wear them to bed.”

With permission granted by the principal, Flood and his son installed bins in the school to collect coats. The drive turned out to be a success. The following year, Will asked to do it again. Flood incorporated “Coats for Kids” and made him on the president. “Coats for Kids” continues on at St. Joe’s Prep, where Will now attends, and at St. Helena’s. Flood’s daughter Kyra is also involved.

When asked where he gets his sense of social responsibility, he doesn’t have to look far for inspiration: his parents William and Jacqueline.

“I guess it was instilled in me as a child—you do for others,” he says. “It’s the old ‘time, talent and treasure’ idea. Not everybody can give all three, but most people can give at least one or two.”

As he heads down Fayette Street in Conshohocken on March 10 wearing his grand marshal sash, Flood plans to just enjoy himself in the company of his friends, family and fellow Hibernians. And he’ll remember his parents, who were such an inspiration and so proud of their Irish heritage: “I just wish my mother and father could have been there to see me.”

February 17, 2012 by
Arts

A Director’s View of “Woman and Scarecrow”

woman and scarecrowA woman lies on her deathbed, time ticking away, the end imminent. As she comes face to face with her mortality, she nurses regrets, mourns missed opportunities and contemplates the nature of her complicated marriage to a unfaithful husband. She is accompanied on her final journey by a friend, unseen to others, who is both comforter and critic.

Like most quick summaries of a complex piece of art, this bit of shorthand doesn’t do justice to Irish playwright Marina Carr’s ultimately redemptive “Woman and Scarecrow,” on tap for Villanova University’s Vasey Theatre November 8 through 20. “Woman and Scarecrow” has been described by reviewers as “spirited,” “biting,” “poetic” and “fierce and funny.”

(Hey, it’s Irish. It’s about death. Of course there are laughs.)

The play is not the first visible evidence of a unique new educational exchange program between Villanova’s well-known Irish Studies department and the Abbey Theatre, the national theatre of Ireland, but it might boast the highest profile. Described as “an historic intellectual/artistic partnership,” the new exchange program will expose Villanova students and outside audiences to renowned Irish actors, directors and writers; at the same time, Villanova students will travel to Dublin to study and work with the Abbey Theatre.

Directing “Woman and Scarecrow” is actor-friar Father David Cregan, O.S.A., associate professor and chair of the theatre department.

We talked to him about the play and the new relationship with the Abbey Theatre.

Question: Tell me about this play. What is it about to you and why do you like it?

Answer: “Woman and Scarecrow” has all the best qualities of an Irish play. It has a powerful story, it’s written with a kind of poetic prose that is indicative of the Irish dramatic tradition, and it also balances the comic and the tragic elements of the human existence in quite an epic way. That makes it a shining example of Irish theatre. The ability to both laugh and cry and to celebrate and mourn simultaneously—that’s part of the Irish aesthetic in general.

The play was attractive to me because of the epic way in which it deals with the really important questions of life and death. It allows the audience to enjoy a powerful story that simultaneously has a prophetic message about how to live life to its fullest, how to value oneself and how to live in the right relationship with the world. It tells the story through a series of tragedies and triumphs, through a series of failures and accomplishments in the life of Woman. But the play also has a sort of transnational quality in the way that it speaks to the human condition. It’s not only the Irish condition. It allows us to witness the last moments of this woman’s life as she tries to reconcile herself with her choices and deals with the repercussions of her mistakes.

Question: You’re an actor-director, but you’re also a priest. How do you look upon this play from the priest’s perspective?

Answer: It confirms something that both religion and theater share in common. If you’re familiar with the Roman Catholic creed, the line in the creed that really calls out to me is this one: “We believe in the seen and the unseen.” This play, while it tells a very specific story, has a kind of global outreach in the sense that it articulates both the seen and unseen qualities of what it means to be a human being, and it really connects the spiritual and the material in the way that it builds the relationship between Woman and the Scarecrow. The question in the play is, who or what is Scarecrow? Scarecrow appears on the stage for the entire production, and is physically and metaphysically connected with Woman, but she’s another element of her. The other characters in the play, when they come into the room, don’t see or acknowledge that Scarecrow is there. It’s kind of an embodiment of the spiritual component of the human condition. Scarecrow is not just her conscience, not editing or condemning her for a licentious lifestyle, but is pointing out to her that the mistake she made was in not valuing her life in the way that she should have; that her mistakes were that she didn’t treat herself well. [In this way, Scarecrow] helps woman cross from the world of the living into death. Those are the kinds of things they talk about the whole play. The play has an acknowledgement of the ethereal—or as I would describe it, of the spiritual—that definitely connects with my larger worldview of spiritual responsibility.

Question: Did Villanova’s theatre department choose this play, or was it a more collaborative decision with Abbey Theatre? And what role did the Irish Studies department play?

Answer: When the relationship with the Abbey Theatre began to materialize, we started to think of ways of making a connection. “Woman and Scarecrow” was a natural fit for me because my research and my writing is all in the area of contemporary Irish drama. I was interested in the potential and the power of the play. So many of the themes in the play are important Irish themes about returning home, and in particular returning to the West of Ireland and its curative and humane qualities. They speak of homecoming. Homecoming is not just about the connection to place or earth; it’s also a kind of spiritual reckoning.

Question: Marina Carr was a Heimbold professor at Villanova in 2003. Did that have anything to do with the choice of this play?

Answer: We’ve been connected with her work; we’ve produced it before. She was a friend of the department. This particular piece of work in my opinion is a triumph in her writing, a high point in her career, even though it’s a relatively small play.

Question: You’re an Irish fella. What’s appealing to you about doing Irish Theatre.

Answer: What I love about the Irish theatre is its courage, the exploration of deep emotion, and its interest in the journey of the soul and of the mind. This play contains all of that. It’s an actor’s dream come true because of the breadth of its emotional expression, and it’s a director’s dream come true because the script is so beautifully and poetically written. It really exhibits a kind of emotional complexity that is part of Irish artistic expression, a kind of courage to look at the harder, darker things. That’s one of the things I love about Irish plays—it’s the deep feeling at the center of it all.

  • irishphiladelphia.com readers get a 50 percent discount on tickets. Click on the Direct Ticketing Link or call the ticket office at 610-519-7474 and use the code IRISHPHILLY.
November 4, 2011 by
Music

Órla Fallon: Living the American Dream

Órla Fallon

Órla Fallon

Órla Fallon can’t remember a time when she didn’t sing.

You’ll remember Fallon as one of the original members of Celtic Woman—she’s the one with the harp and the glorious voice. Like so many exceptional Irish musicians, Fallon grew up surrounded by the tradition.

“I’ve been singing since I was a very small child. I was singing before I could talk,” she says. “My love of music and singing was encouraged from a young age. My mother (Eileen) comes from Kerry, and her parents gave her a deep love of Irish language and folklore. When we were little, we would spend a good deal of time down in Kerry. Many of the songs I sing I learned from my grandmother (Bridget Clifford). I think of singing songs with her in the kitchen then, and singing the same songs now in America. I’ve never known anybody who has such a passion for the old traditional songs. I think she gave me the passion.”

You can hear that passion ringing through in Fallon’s stage shows (she’ll be at Bethlehem Musikfest on Thursday, October 6), her televised concerts, and on her albums, including the most recent, “My Land.”

Maybe Fallon was always going to be a talented singer. For that, she can thank her parents and grandparents. As a player of Celtic harp, she’s doubly gifted. And for that, she can thank the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny.

“I was a teenager, 13, when I started,” Fallon says. “I was really lucky. I went to a boarding school in Phoenix Park, Dublin, called Mount Sackville. It has a brilliant harping tradition. My mother was really excited when she heard about it. When I heard (one of) the nuns playing the tunes and found out she was friends with Derek Bell of the Chieftains, I just fell in love with it. If I had not gone there, my life would have been so different.”

With so much talent, it was clear from an early age that Fallon was never going to remain just a farmer’s daughter from Knockananna, County Wicklow.

Early on, she distinguished herself by winning the International Feis Ceoil in Dublin and the International Pan Celtic Competition for singing with harp accompaniment. And in 1996, she performed with the well-known Irish choral group Anuna.

She is, of course, best known as one of the original members of the definitive Irish “girl group,” Celtic Woman, with whom she performed from 2005 through 2008.

Fallon says she could still be with Celtic Woman, but, in that final year, after all the flash, it was time for something new.

“It was great to be part of something as successful as Celtic Woman, but I wanted to be in control of my own destiny,” she says. “It (Celtic Woman) is a big lavish production; I prefer a smaller, earthier production. I don’t believe you need a big massive production to reach out to people. And I can tell stories. I like telling stories. Then it’s really ‘me’ on stage.”

Fallon’s more intimate show these days is an engaging mix of Irish traditional music, mixed in with traditions from other places–including America.

“I like trying American songs. The band I have on tour with me are a very bluegrass-y band. I always call our show ‘a little melting pot.’ There’s a nice variety of songs. It’s nice, because it keeps it fresh. Music is a living thing.”

That she has become so popular in the United States is, for Fallon, the fulfillment of a dream she has entertained from an early age. “Someone once said to me, ‘There’s a big stage waiting for you in America.’ I always dreamed of coming to America and playing songs. I know it sounds cheesy, but I really am living the dream.”

And if you want to see Órla Fallon for free, have we got a contest for you. All you have to do is subscribe to our weekly e-alert known as Mickmail. (Alternatively, if you already subscribe, you can enter by forwarding Mickmail to a friend.) There are two pairs of tickets available, as well as a pretty nice consolation prize: four “My Land” CDs.

We pick the winners on Monday, September 26. So you gotta be quick.

September 23, 2011 by
Music

The Musical Evolution of Moya Brennan

Cormac De Barra and Moya Brennan

Cormac De Barra and Moya Brennan

When we called singer Moya Brennan the other day, her husband, photographer Tim Jarvis, had to put the phone down for a few moments while he went to get her. “She’s up a ladder,” he said.

A minute or two later, Brennan was on the phone, laughing, and explaining that she’d been off in her son Paul’s room painting when the call came in. “I wasn’t just putting on my wings,” she said. “I was decorating. I love DIY. It’s so different from what I do in my life.”

What Brennan does, when she’s not laying down masking tape and slathering on primer, is sing wonderfully, beautifully, expressively, passionately—in Irish, English and at least once in Mohican. And that’s just for starters. Starting in 1970, she made her mark as the lead singer for the pioneering Celtic band Clannad. The Grammy-winning, Donegal-based ensemble, which Brennan formed with her brothers Pól and Ciarán and her mother’s twin brothers Noel and Pádraig Ó Dúgáin, was one of the first to take bold liberties with traditional music. The sound of Clannad is unlike any other, effortlessly and seamlessly blending elements of Irish, folk, rock, chant, jazz, New Age and world music. Clannad never found a genre it could not bend to its will.

Brennan launched her solo career in 1992, with the release of the eponymous CD Máire. (Moya is the phonetic pronunciation of her name.) She has performed all over the world, collaborated with performers as varied as the Pogues’ Shane MacGowan and Bono. She has recorded 25 albums, and has performed for popes and presidents. And as if Brennan’s not busy enough already, lovers of Clannad will be gratified to hear that she and the rest of the band are recording a new album, to be released in 2012.

More about that in a moment.

Next Saturday, she’ll appear in concert with friend and world-class harper Cormac De Barra at Sellersville Theatre.

Brennan’s collaboration with De Barra is just one of many intriguing turns in her 40-year musical career. Looking back on her career, she said she has always craved challenging new creative opportunities.

“I’ve matured so much in the way I sing and the way I know I can carry my voice and use it to the best of its ability, and in the way I have shared musical spaces with so many different artists,” Brennan explained. “There’s so much great music out there—great genres, great young acts coming up. It’s great to brush up with them at festivals or in a session. You have to be open to creativity at all times. There’s so much to be had out there. I’m in the middle of so many different projects. That’s what I love about it. That’s what keeps me going.”

Brennan’s quest for the new and experimental has its roots, of course, in Clannad. The band’s constantly changing perspectives, she recalled, sometimes perplexed fans who couldn’t understand why they didn’t just stick to one particular sound and keep pounding away at it. But Clannad’s members knew no other way. The band just kept evolving.

And soon, fans will get to hear and judge the latest stage in Clannad’s evolution. The band had played together from time to time in recent years, and a new album was promised. Toward the beginning of the new year, the band will make good on that promise.

“We started recording at the beginning of the summer,” Brennan said. “Because of all our different commitments, we’re not in the studio all the time, but we hope to be finished by the end of November, to be released at the beginning of the new year, and we’ll go out and do a bit of touring. It’s exciting because we haven’t been doing the same thing for years.

“This is going to be a very interesting album. I think it’s going to be our strongest album ever. It’s to do with all the different influences we’ve gained and surrounded ourselves with over the last 15 year. We’re coming to the table with different takes and new ideas. When I go into the studio, I’m just very excited about it.”

In between recording sessions, Brennan continues to maintain an active and varied touring schedule. She’ll be at the Dublin, Ohio, Irish Festival this weekend, then back to Ireland for the Kilkenny Arts Festival on Tuesday and to Lorient, France, the next day for yet another festival.

And then, at last, to Sellersville, which has nothing in common with the south coast of Brittany, but it’s a pretty nice town all the same.

The last time Brennan performed at Sellersville Theatre, she had a terrible cold, and felt bad about not giving the audience her best. This time, health permitting, will be a different story, she said. She’s especially excited about sharing the stage with De Barra, with whom she released a CD, “Voices & Harps.” Also on stage, playing guitar, singing and playing whistle, will be Brennan’s 19-year-old daughter Aisling Jarvis.

“We (Brennan and de Barra) had been around and playing together for years,” she said. It’s been kind of a nice gradual thing. He’s the best harper in Ireland. We always knew we’d do an album together. It just fell into place at the right time. It’s really special doing this project with Cormac—old songs, new songs, but creating a different sound from our harps and voices. Cormac is a lovely singer as well. I do a little bit of harp; he does a little bit of singing. It’s kind of nice, you know.”

You can hear for yourself. Learn more about the Sellersville Concert here.

August 5, 2011 by
Music

Young Local Trad Phenom Conal O’Kane is On His Way

Conal O'Kane, third in from the right.

Conal O'Kane, third in from the right.

Conal O’Kane. We knew him when.

We first met the Philadelphia-born fiddler/banjo player/guitarist back in May 2006, when he played fiddle with two bands, both of them comprised of young local phenoms, in a traditional music concert at Palmyra Cove Nature Park. Like proud parents, we still have the pictures.

(We also have a photo of him playing at the 2006 Penn’s Landing Irish Festival with a fun little pick-up band called Pat the Budgie.)

Philadelphia has long been an incubator for young Irish musical talents. Conal O’Kane is one of our local kids who has, predictably perhaps, gone on to bigger things as a young adult. Now 23 and a recent graduate of the prestigious traditional music and dance program at the University of Limerick, O’Kane is getting set to make his mark in the traditional Irish music world.

O’Kane is the guitarist for the jazzy little Irish band Goitse (pronounced “gwi-cha”), which will perform in a Green Willow-sponsored concert in Wilmington on Sunday. All the members of Goitse are present or former University of Limerick students. He’s the only American.

Even though his roots are in South Philly, O’Kane from a young age has had deep musical roots in Ireland. O’Kane’s father Patrick is from Buncrana in Donegal, and the family returned there for visits every summer. During one of those visits, when O’Kane was 13 or 14, his dad introduced him to a legendary Donegal fiddler Dinny McLaughlin. McLaughlin taught or inspired many present-day stars, including Liz Doherty, Ciaran Tourish and Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh.

“Dinny is a great fiddle teacher from my dad’s home town,” O’Kane said in a recent interview. “He taught me half of a jig, the ‘A’ part of Whelan’s Fancy, and he told me that if I couldn’t play it well the next time I came to Ireland, he would strangle me. I don’t think I ever got the ‘B’ part off of him. I had to figure that out on my own.”

Long before his introduction to McLaughlin, O’Kane was on intimate terms with Irish music; his dad loved it. Recordings by groups like Altan, the Bothy Band and Dé Danann played in heavy rotation around the house, O’Kane explained, and he had always enjoyed listening to it. “It was a growing interest,” O’Kane said, “but the thing with Dinny definitely kick-started it.”

When he returned to Philadelphia, O’Kane looked for a fiddle teacher. At a Sunday session sponsored by the Next Generation, a group of young Irish music students led by local talents Dennis Gormley, Kathy DeAngelo and Chris Brennan-Hagy, O’Kane met one of the area’s top fiddle players and a four-time All-Ireland medalist, Brendan Callahan. O’Kane became a student.

Callahan proved to be a major influence right from the start, O’Kane recalls. “I got really lucky there. He’s just an awesome player, and I went to him for a few years.”

Thanks to Callahan, the next time O’Kane returned to Buncrana, he’d learned well enough that Dinny McLaughlin took him under his wing. That summer, and each summer thereafter, O’Kane completely immersed himself in the local music.

“I improved enough for Dinny not to strangle me. That was the main point,” O’Kane quipped. “I mean, when you know you’re going to be playing for Dinny, you want to be solid. I started playing in Irish music sessions with him around Buncrana. I really enjoyed the session scene. That’s what Irish music was about for me—it was playing with other people in sessions.”

O’Kane continued to play fiddle and improve. Along the way, he picked up and also loved banjo, which Callahan had recommended to him as a way to learn to play triplets on fiddle.

And when he was about 16, he added guitar to his arsenal, inspired by the likes of Irish guitar great Arty McGlynn.

O’Kane’s next big move was the University of Limerick, although there was a brief musical detour along the way.

“I took a year off after high school, sort of bumming around Galway playing music, trying to figure out what to do. And then a friend of mine from Philadelphia told me about the program at the University of Limerick. I went down and auditioned for it, and got accepted. I just auditioned on the fiddle. I figured the fiddle would be my main instrument, with banjo as the second, and then just sort of plunk away on guitar on my own.”

About midway through his stay at the university, O’Kane was invited to join the then brand spanking new band Goitse (it means “come here”) after he competed in a local battle of the trad bands sponsored by the university. Goitse won the competition, and O’Kane’s band lost … but the members of Goitse plainly saw something they liked. He’s been playing with the band ever since.

For now, O’Kane is committed to pursuing a career in Irish music. You won’t see him play often, though, because he’s living in Limerick. Philly is where he’s from, but Ireland is where his heart is.

“I go back to Philly maybe once or twice a year. But basically, yeah, I’m still living in Limerick. It’s my home now and all of my friends are there … and there is always good music around. I’m here for the long haul.”

If you want to become re-acquainted with this gifted young man, you can see him in concert with Goitse at Timothy’s on the Riverfront, 930 Justison St., in Wilmington on Sunday,starting at 7 p.m.

July 29, 2011 by