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Philadelphia Emerald Society Pipe Band

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On Stage With the Chieftains

The Philadelphia Emerald Society Pipe Band, on stage

There we all were, a long crescent-shaped line of bottle green and saffron, 17 pipers and drummers playing our hearts out onstage in Verizon Hall at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, surrounded by roughly 2,500 clapping, cheering, wildly enthusiastic Irish music fans.

And wait, it gets even more awesome. We were accompanying the world’s foremost Irish traditional band: the Chieftains.

Not many people get to say they’ve done either—perform at the Kimmel or sit in with the Chieftains—but we members of the Philadelphia Emerald Society Pipe Band can add that show to the list of the coolest gigs we’ve ever played. Probably the coolest.

It began for us about a month before the Chieftain’s annual St. Patrick’s show when we were approached by representatives of the band and asked if we’d want to play. We’d need to learn two tunes, the “March of the St. Patricios” and a Breton dance tune called “An Dro.” No one needed to think long about it.

It was a challenge. We’re a competition band, so we spend months focusing on the three tunes we’ll have to play at highland games and Irish festivals throughout the spring and summer. It’s a fussy business, and you’d be surprised at how long it can take before you get to the point where you think you’re ready for prime time.

And here were the Chieftains—the Chieftains, no less—asking us to learn two new tunes and to be ready to hit the concert stage in just a few weeks. Happily, we were kind of like the Cardinals in the National League Division Series last year: We peaked at just the right time.

Friday night, we all showed up at the Kimmel stage door entrance on 15th Street and were escorted down into the basement to two small rooms with little white plaques marked “The Chieftains Pipers.” We did what we usually do: wrestle with pipe tuning until we felt we got them where they needed to be.

After that, everything happened quickly. We were ushered upstairs and led out onto the stage for our pre-show rehearsal—the only rehearsal we would ever have, for a show that was scheduled to start in a little under an hour. Paddy Moloney quickly explained how we were to come in on both tunes. We played together for perhaps 10 minutes, and then we were escorted back downstairs.

And then, about 20 minutes later, back upstairs again, where we waited in the wings while the Chieftains motored through the first half of their show.

We were shortly joined by the striking Scottish singer Alyth McCormack, and after a Carolan tune by Celtic harper Trina Marshall, out we marched to thundering applause. A lot of what happened next passed by in a blur:

The march started.

We joined in.

We marched off.

I’m pretty sure we played well, but probably more than a few of us were only just starting to realize that about 2,500 sets of eyes and ears were suddenly focused on us. There wasn’t time for stage fright, but there was time to take in just how thrilling this moment was.

And then, a few tunes later, we herded back out on stage for the encore. “An Dro” is always the band’s last number at the Kimmel—and maybe everywhere else, for all we know. The Chieftains’ dancers always prance out onto the stage, and from there out into the audience, where anyone who wants to can join this kind of Breton kick line all the way around the auditorium and back up onto stage.

Once again, the Chieftains started off. After the first verse, with a signal from Paddy, the drones kicked in, and off we went, playing this other-wordly folk tune, drums banging out the rhythm. Before we knew it, the dancers were back up the stage, jumping up and down in front of us, and the whole number ended with a long and loud drum roll—and then the audience erupted, giving us all a standing ovation.

The Chieftains hurried off stage left, and we headed off stage right. There were smiles everywhere, threatening to become permanent. One of the pipers, I don’t remember who, looked at me and asked, “Did that really just happen?”

Oh, yeah, it did. And not one of us will ever forget it.

Here are a few photos from the night, with a great YouTube video up top.

View the photos.

March 14, 2012 by Jeff Meade

People

Marching To a Different Drummer

Kevin Hughes, lower right, with fellow seminarians.

There was a time when it seemed like every Irish family sent a boy into the seminary. It was a point of pride within families and within the Irish-American community, which once sent more of its sons into the Catholic priesthood than any other nationality.

That was then. Now, people perhaps are more mystified than proud when a young man they know wants to take that momentous step. Why would anyone commit to such a life?

I’m thinking now of Kevin Hughes, my friend. I first came to know Kevin when he joined the Philadelphia Emerald Society Pipe Band. I was a drummer. Kevin was a student at LaSalle and a piper with lungs of steel and fingers that moved in a blur. No one could keep up with him.

When you belong to a competition pipe band, you get to know people pretty well. Competitions usually are not close, so you have to share long rides out to Long Island, Southern Maryland and the like, and back again. (It’s an even longer ride home if you’ve lost.)

That’s how I got to know Kevin. I can still remember him sacking out in the passenger seat of my car on our way back from a competition venue, maybe the Long Island Scottish Games at Old Westbury Gardens. He snored.

It’s been clear for years that Kevin was bound for the priesthood—the Jesuits in particular, thanks to four years of exposure at St. Joe’s Prep. A lot of us probably have a fixed idea of what a young man with his sights set on the priesthood is supposed to be like. You might picture the holy card poster boy, eyes permanently fixed on the heavens. You might not picture the husky dude with lungs of steel, sitting on the Irish Center bar stool next to you, trading wise cracks after band practice.

That’s our Kevin—bright, hugely talented, and, in my estimation, a pretty good match for an order known for intellectual rigor and spiritual integrity.

St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder, was a knight before he became a priest. Today, I’d like to think he might have been a piper.

We tracked Kevin down by e-mail at the Novitiate of St. Andrew Hall in Syracuse, N.Y. Here’s what he had to say.

Q. How old are you? What was your degree at LaSalle?

A. I am 23 years old and my degree from La Salle University is in biology, Bachelors of Arts. I am the third youngest man in the novitiate.

Q. I want to go back to a question I asked you before: Why? Why the priesthood? Why the Jesuits?

A. Why does anyone fall in love? You just know, it’s like being called to something. That is how I feel, like I am being called by God to something larger than myself. I feel like the Jesuit charism is compatible with my own desires to serve the people of God, specifically to see God in all things and to be a man for others.

Q. I’ll also note that no one asks incredulous-sounding questions when someone says they’re going to med school or law school. I wonder what goes through your head when someone asks that question, as if you’ve just announced that you’re planning to be the first astronaut to walk on the surface of Mercury or you’re hoping to open a chain of cat-waxing facilities.

A. I certainly realize that a lot fewer people, especially young people, are desiring to enter religious life, so I don’t mind at all when people ask me what I am thinking. In fact, I welcome the questions because it gives me a chance to tell people that someone can be happy with a life devoted to the love and service of God and His people.

Another thing I tell people, when they ask about why I have to take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, is that I don’t have to take them, I don’t have to be a member of a religious order, no one is forcing me: I could go to med or grad school, but I am choosing to take these vows and to live a life in a religious order to study for the priesthood.

Q. Tell us a bit about your everyday life. How has the reality of the novitiate compared to your expectations?

A. Well, getting up at 5:30 a.m. has taken some getting used to, as well as going to bed around 9:30 p.m.

My day begins with an hour of private prayer, followed by communal Morning Prayer, and then some classes about church and Jesuit history, then about the Gospel. We have Mass every day and communal dinner and night prayer.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I work at an Apostolate volunteer job from 8:30 to 2:30. I work in Cathedral Emergency Services, a local Syracuse food pantry. IT IS GREAT, I love it. The other novices there are really good guys and they are easy to get along with.

Q. What’s the career path beyond the novitiate? How long before you’re ordained? Tell me again what you hope to do as a Jesuit?

A. The career path beyond the novitiate is still unknown. God willing, after taking vows we are sent to first studies. This can be one of four places: Toronto, St. Louis, Chicago or Manhattan. We really don’t know where we will be sent until right before we go; they like to keep us in suspense.

Again, God willing, I will be ordained after the 11-year program—two years novitiate, three years first studies, three years Regency, three years theology studies.

As a Jesuit I don’t really want to limit myself to any “career” within the Society, but at some point I would certainly like to do some teaching.

Q. Do you think you’ll get the chance to play pipes any time soon? Or is your schedule and your training just that demanding?

A. I do still have a chance to play the pipes, however not nearly as much time as I had before joining. My playing is limited to practicing and occasionally playing the pipes for the guys.

I had the opportunity to go to McQuaid Jesuit High School in Rochester, N.Y., and played my pipes there, while the superior of the Jesuit community did some Irish step dancing. He’s very good, he used to teach Irish Step.

December 16, 2008 by Jeff Meade

Music

Local Pipe Bands Win With Amazing Grace

Emerald celebrates.

It’s a fair bet that each pipe band preparing to compete Saturday at the Anne Arundel Scottish Highland Games had hoped—possibly even believed—it was truly ready.

By “ready,” I mean that each band had methodically selected three to five tunes up to a year before. Each had played the same three to five tunes over and over again, for hours at a time, week in and week out, until fingers could remember the notes even when the mind forgot them. They had incurred the ire of abandoned spouses. They had willingly submitted to the searing criticism of petulant pipe majors.

All this, for a contest measured in moments. A solid year of focused effort, sacrifice and commitment—all of it riding on one all-too-brief performance in the fading Southern Maryland sunshine. Win, place, show—or crash and burn.

Fortunately, for three Delaware-area bagpipe bands, it was a day of happy endings. The Ulster Scottish Pipe Band of Devon placed first in grade 3; the Philadelphia Emerald Society Pipe Band racked up a first in grade 4; and the Cameron Highlanders Pipe Band of Lafayette Hill notched a second in grade 4. (Pipe bands are lumped into grades so that they’re more or less evenly matched with the bands against which they might compete. Grade 5 is entry-level; grades 4 and grade 3 are more advanced; and grades 2 and 1 are reserved for the scarily good pipe bands. Not surprisingly, there are lots and lots of grade 5 bands in the United States, but there are only a few grade 1 bands.)

For those whose interests do not include the trials of bagpipe band competition (what’s wrong with you, anyway?), there were lots of other activities to keep you occupied in a Celtic sort of way, including sheep dog trials, Highland athletics, haggis eating (thanks, I’ll pass), shortbread nibbling (I’m there), music, Scottish dancing and more.

The videos:

October 17, 2007 by Jeff Meade