Workshop Instructors
Bodhrán
|
|
New York born fiddler Brian Conway is a leading exponent of the tastefully ornamented Sligo fiddling style made famous by the late Michael Coleman. The winner of two All- Ireland junior titles in 1973 and 1974 and the All-Ireland senior championship of 1986, Brian's early studies were with his father Jim of Plumbridge, County Tyrone and with Limerick born fiddler/teacher Martin Mulvihill. However, it was the legendary fiddler and composer Martin Wynne who taught him the real secrets of the County Sligo style. Later, Brian met and befriended the great Andy McGann of New York, a direct student of Michael Coleman, who further shaped his precision and skill on the instrument.
In 1979, Brian recorded a duet album, The Apple In Winter (Green Linnet) with fellow New York fiddler Tony Demarco. He released his debut solo CD, First Through the Gate, on the Smithsonian-Folkways label in July 2002. This CD was voted the Album of the Year by the Irish Echo. Brian is also featured on the CD, My Love is in America, recorded at the Boston College Irish Fiddle Festival, and on the documentary "Shore to Shore" which highlights traditional Irish music in New York. He is considered one of the musical rocks of the New York area. In 2007, Brian released a CD titled A Tribute to Andy McGann on the prestigious Irish Label Cló Iar-Chonnachta. This CD pairs up Irish Music legends Joe Burke and Felix Dolan along with Brian in a CD which has received glowing accolades since its release in the summer of 2007. Brian followed this CD with a much-anticipated Solo CD titled "Consider the Source" in deference to the rich environment from which Brian learned his music. This CD was released in 2008 on the Cló Iar-Chonnachta Label. This CD features guest appearances by music greats Niamh Parsons, Dan Milner, Billy McComiskey, Joannie Madden, Felix Dolan, and Brendan Dolan. Earle Hitchner of the Irish Echo described this CD as "Easily one of the best releases this year." Brian followed up that recording with the highly acclaimed Pride of New York, and last year, in 2017, recorded with the group Gailfean, featuring John Whelan, Mairtin DeCogain and Don Penzien. Brian remains faithful to the rich tradition handed down to him. The distinctness of his tone, the lift of his playing, and the deft ornamentation he brings to the tunes have placed him among the finest Irish fiddlers of any style, Sligo or otherwise. He has performed all over North America from San Francisco to New York and places in between, such as Chicago, Milwaukee and Colorado. His talents have also been enthusiastically received throughout Ireland and the rest of Europe. He is also considered one of the premier instructors of traditional Irish music who has mentored many fine fiddle players, including several who have gone on to with All-Ireland championships. Friday Night Céilí Band
|
Regina is a harpist, singer, and dancer. She plays and sings traditional Irish music.
In the United States, Regina has studied Irish harp with Aine Minogue and Maeve Gilchrist, and in Ireland with Janet Harbison and the Belfast Harp Orchestra. Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann awarded Regina a scholarship to study the harp in Ireland as part of their Living Traditions Award. At her first appearance at the New Hampshire Highland Games, Regina placed first in the Senior Novice Division. In 2003, Regina qualified for the All-Ireland Fleadh (competition) in Harp and Vocals. Regina performs hard and soft shoe step dancing, ceili and set dancing. She teaches ceili dancing in schools as part of her Artist in Residence work and calls the dances at local ceili dances. She has competed with the Rince Cois Fharraige Irish Dance Academy in Salem, Massachusetts, and has taught ceili, set and step at the Murray Irish Dance Academy in Stratham, NH. In 1998, Regina released her first CD entitled “Geis”, a collection of Irish ballads and tunes. 2001 brought the release of “Nollaig”, a CD of Irish Christmas music, songs, dances, and stories that Regina produced along with Claudia Altemus – her partner in the duo “Réagánta”. Regina is prominently featured on a compilation 2003 CD produced by the New Hampshire Council on the Arts, titled “Songs of the Season”. 2004 brought the release of her second solo CD, titled “From These Hands”. This album is a collection of traditional Irish harp tunes, songs and duos with Claudia Altemus, Rodney Miller, Eugene Durkee, Mike Serpa, Bill Thomas, and her sisters and daughter. Réagánta released their most recent CD, titled “Cup o’ Tea”, in March 2009. Regina also founded and directs the New England Irish Harp Orchestra, which was founded in 2005. The Orchestra has released an album titled “Live at the Portsmouth Athenaeum” and, in 2010, a Christmas CD titled “The First Star”. Within the Orchestra is an ensemble which released a CD in 2014 titled “Another County Heard From". In 2018, NEIHO released a second Christmas CD titled “A Snowy Path”. Invited as a participant, Regina performed harping, singing, and dancing at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in June 1999. At the festival, which usually draws over one million visitors, she also taught ceili dancing, gave a cooking demonstration about Irish soda bread, and taught Irish crafts and dance at the children's tent. She repeated these performances at the Celebrate New Hampshire Culture Festival in Hopkinton, NH in June 2000. As an artist on the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts roster and the MaineArts Commission, Regina performs and teaches in schools throughout the state. In the classroom, she introduces students to Irish poetry, music, song, dance, history, and literature. From her home, Regina teaches the harp to students of all ages, along with teaching harp at Philips Exeter Academy. Regina taught harp at Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann in Boston for ten years. Regina is also an artist on the New Hampshire Arts in Healthcare Roster, bringing her music into hospital, hospice, and other institutions. Regina is a member of the Hanafin-Cooley branch of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann. |
Piano Accompaniment
|
Strings (banjo, mandolin, mandocello)
Ben Hockenberry
Ben Hockenberry of Rochester, New York's Tom Finucane Branch has been playing tenor banjo and mandolin for nearly twenty years. He is a regular at several sessions around the Rochester and Buffalo areas, and has performed in bands including the Bobbens, Ros Gorm, the Foxhunters, the Rochester Strathspey & Reel Society, and the Branch's Comhaltas programming. He plays regularly for Irish ceili and set dancing, English and Scottish Country Dance, and contra and square dances.
He teaches several instruments in private and group lessons, including a “Multi-Instrumental Tunes by Ear” workshop that ran for years in the Rochester area, as well as assisting with the monthly sheet music-based learners' session at Johnny's Pub. He took on organizing an annual day of free Irish cultural workshops at St. John Fisher University when it moved from the nearby Nazareth University, in which students and community members sample an array of music, dance, and language classes from Rochester-area teachers. He also teaches an Irish music course at Fisher, in which students who may have no musical background learn not only the history, culture, and social environment around Irish music, but learn several tunes on tin whistle through an ear-training, phrase-by-phrase method. An adult learner of music himself, he approaches teaching from the perspective that learning music can begin at any age, and seeks to meet students where they are and instill a sense of joy and spontaneity in their playing. |
|
|
Whistles
Joannie Madden
Joanie Madden is considered one of the greatest musicians and personalities in the history of Irish music in America. She was born in the Bronx, New York City, of Irish parents, and is the second oldest of seven children raised in a musical household. Her mother Helen hails from Miltown Malbay, County Clare and her father Joe, an All-Ireland Champion accordion player, was a native of Portumna, County Galway.
Joanie was exposed to the finest Irish traditional music early in her life, listening to her father and his friends play music at family gatherings and social events. She began taking lessons from legendary flutist Jack Coen, and within a few short years she won the All-Ireland Championship on both the concert flute and tin whistle. In 1984, Joanie became the first American to win the coveted Senior All-Ireland Championship on the whistle. Throughout her musical career, she has amassed a plethora of awards and citations. Her merits include being the youngest member inducted into both the Irish-American Musicians Hall of Fame and the Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Hall of Fame. She was also chosen for the Wild Geese Award, where she joined an impressive list of previous honorees including Pulitzer Prize-winning authors, Tony Award-winning playwrights, and Nobel Prize laureates. Irish America Magazine selected her twice as one of the Top 100 Irish-Americans in the United States and Earle Hitchner of the Irish Voice Newspaper also named her Traditional Musician of the Year, all for her contributions to promoting and preserving Irish culture in the United States. In 2010, Joanie was forever immortalized on the streets of her native Bronx when a street was named after her on the Grand Concourse: “Joanie Madden and Cherish the Ladies”. In 2011, she was bestowed one of the nation’s highest awards as she was chosen for the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, joining an illustrious list of distinguished American citizens including six United States Presidents—all singled out for their exemplary service to the United States. In 2012, Joanie was selected for the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Irish Music Awards and was also named as a recipient of the esteemed USA Artist Fellowship Grant, including her as one of the most innovative and influential artists in America. In 2013, she was named Grand Marshal of the Yonkers St. Patrick’s Day Parade, and in 2015 Joanie was named County Clare’s Person of the Year. Her impact on Irish music has been revered around the globe and, for that reason, the Irish Voice Newspaper named Joanie Madden one of the Top 25 Irish-Americans of the Past Quarter Century. In 2016, Irish America Magazine also named Joanie Madden one of the Top 50 Most Influential Irish-American Women in the World. Madden is a successful recording artist in Irish traditional music, having sold over 500,000 solo albums. She is in constant demand as a studio musician and has performed on over 180 albums with such luminary artists as Pete Seeger, Sinead O’Connor and the Boston Pops. She also performed and helped arrange three Grammy Award-winning albums: “Pete” with folk legend Pete Seeger, “Celtic Solstice” with Paul Winter and Friends, as well as the soundtrack to the PBS documentary “The Long Journey Home – The Irish in America”. She was the featured soloist on HBO’s Emmy-nominated documentary “Barbaro – A Nation’s Horse”, the Emmy-nominated BBC America television series “Copper”, and was presented with a Peabody Award for the ESPN documentary entitled “The Complete Angler”. She produced a PBS/American Public Television special “Cherish the Ladies: An Irish Homecoming”, that won a Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award. Additionally, she has worked and has been a featured soloist in Ric and Ken Burns’ critically acclaimed PBS documentaries “New York” and “The Way West”. Her involvement on the “Celtic Twilight” series of CDs led to two platinum albums with over 1,000,000 in sales. She has toured with the Eagles’ Don Henley and was a featured soloist on the final Lord of the Rings soundtrack. When it comes to traditional Irish music, Joanie Madden is a purist and a keeper of the flame. Her passion in life is to nurture and pass down the culture to the next generation the same way it was so lovingly passed to her. |
Accordion
|
2 hand and Céilí Dancing
Maureen Mulvey O’Leary
Maureen Mulvey O’Leary
Maureen was born in Toronto but when her father decided to purchase a pub in his hometown of Drumshambo, Co. Leitrim, she along with her six siblings experienced what it was like to grow up as a child in Ireland. At the age of 19, Maureen decided to come back to Toronto and has been living here ever since. Dancing is her passion and she chairs the Comhaltas branches of Toronto and Canada East. Maureen is at the heart of the Irish community in Toronto and this podcast would not have been complete without a chat with her. |
|
|
Clare Style Fiddling
Patrick Ourceau
Fiddle player Patrick Ourceau has been playing Irish Music since his early teens. Born and raised in France, Patrick moved to the U.S. in 1989, settling in New York City where he lived for seventeen years, and is now based in Toronto, Canada.
Mostly self-taught, Patrick’s taste for Clare and East Galway music developed early in his career after being introduced to recordings of the legendary fiddle players Paddy Canny, Paddy Fahey and Bobby Casey. Patrick regularly visits Ireland—especially County Clare. Over the years he has, during those trips, been able to play with and learn from Paddy Canny as well as many other local musicians, including flute and fiddle player Peadar O’Loughlin. During the many years he lived in New York, Patrick often played with such great musicians as fiddle players Andy McGann and Paddy Reynolds among many others, but was particularly influenced by the style and repertoire of Woodford, County Galway flute player Jack Coen. He has been a member of the band Chulrua since 2003, along with accordion player Paddy O’Brien and guitarist and singer Pat Egan. The trio released last year, on Shanachie Records, “The Singing Kettle”, their first recording together. When not touring with the band, Patrick performs with guitarist Eamon O’Leary. In 2004, Patrick and Eamon released “Live at Mona’s”, a live recording project praised by critics and fans alike as one of the best recent releases of Irish traditional music. Since the mid-nineties, Patrick has performed with many Irish and Irish American musicians and bands. Most notably in duets with Ennis, Co. Clare concertina player Gearoid O’hallmhurain with whom he recorded “Tracin‘” in 1999; with Tulla, Co. Clare accordion player Andrew McNamara, and with the legendary Tulla Ceili band during the band’s last American tour. Patrick is featured on flute player Cathal McConnell’s last solo release, “Long Expectant Comes at Last”, on Compass Records; on accordion player John Whelan’s “Celtic Roots” on Narada Records and, more recently, on the TG4’CD and DVD release “Geantrai”, a compilation celebrating the first ten years of the popular traditional Irish music television program. In the last fifteen years, Patrick has been in great demand as a teacher and regularly teaches both privately and at various festivals and summer schools across North America and Ireland. Since 1999 he has been part of the teaching staff at Irish Arts Week in East Durham, New York, and at Celtic College in Goderich, Canada. He has been teaching for the past several years at Friday Harbor Irish Music Camp in San Juan Island, Washington, and at the Chris Langan Weekend in Toronto. Patrick has taught several years at Augusta’s Irish Week in Elkins, West Virginia. He has also taught at the Alaska Fiddle Camp in Chugiak, Alaska; at the St. Louis Tionol in St. Louis, Missouri; at the East Coast Tionol in East Durham, New York; at the O’Flaherty’s Retreat in Dallas, Texas; at the Armagh Piper’s Club in County Armagh, Northern Ireland; and at the Fleadh Nua in Ennis, County Clare, Ireland. Set Dancing
|
Sean-nós Singing
Mairin Ul Cheide
tune. Indeed, an old neighbor of hers, Paddy Higgins, was one of the best at Port Beil (mouth music). From the age of two Mairin Ul Cheide (Irish singer and speaker) was born in July 1958 in Leitirmoir, the heart of the rural Conamara Gaeltacht—much like other rural places in Ireland, except that Irish was spoken by almost everyone except those in authority or the professions. Most of the food came from the surrounding land, with farm neighbors fishing for supplemental income and food. Surrounded there by a strong oral tradition, to Mairin it seems like she has been singing all her life. When she was growing up, Radio Eireann and the “Ceili House” program in particular were very popular—all in Irish, as was a drama program. Her earliest radio recollection is of an announcement of the death of the American President J.F. Kennedy.
Mairin came from a long line of poets and singers. Most people did not have musical instruments…and yet knew every dance, Mairin spent most of her childhood with her maternal grandmother, as it was common for grandchildren to reside with a grandparent, mostly to dispel the loneliness of emigration. Often, but especially on Friday nights, neighbors or other visitors would come to the house, and there would be mouth music, old style step dancing and, of course, singing. In a community of extended families, Mairin also knew her great grandmother, who lived with Mairin’s parents. Most homes had grandparents and often great-grandparents in them, and their ways were of the older Irish folk world. Her grandmother never threw water out the door without speaking a warning to any bird or spirit who might be passing by. It was a world Mairin describes as one in which time seemed to stand still. Her uncle Coilimin Seoige was her mentor; he had thousands of songs and was a tough taskmaster and teacher. A purist, he ensured that her singing was as correct as possible; her phrasing and language had to be true to the poet. Her paternal grandfather, Michael Kelly, was also a great storyteller and had a trove of Irish and some English folksongs (learned in his travels with the Irish Army). Often his rendition of these songs would take place as he lay on his bed memorizing verses, such as a never-ending song in English about a boxing challenge, “Morrisey and the Mighty Russian.” In retrospect, Mairin says, it is no wonder she had no interest in the rock and pop music explosions happening all around her in the late 60s and early 70s. She was steeped in a fast-disappearing tradition of poetry, song, and storytelling. She was fortunate to have had a great Irish literature teacher, Sean Gaora, who encouraged her to sing most of the old poetry which she already knew as songs—songs often with many more versions of the poems than appeared in standardized textbook selections. For example, “An Droighnean Donn” (The Brown Thorn Bush) appeared in only three versions in her textbook…a song for which she already knew ten versions. She remembers winning her first prize at a Comhaltas feis in Dublin. Seamus Mac Mathuna had come to her house to bring her to Dublin, to her first encounter with Seamus and Brid De Brun, who continued to judge her in singing competitions over many years. She doesn’t remember much about the first competition itself, but the journey home was something she’ll always cherish. Seamus Mac Mathuna stopped at the Keanes’ in Caherlistrand where, after preparing dinner, the three Keane sisters sang for them. Onward home, toward Leitirmoir going through Spiddal, they called on Tom Phaidin Tom, a great sean nos singer who sang many of Raftery’s compositions. Years later, Mairin sang a song that Tom Phaidin Tom had sung that day, “Bridin Bheasach” (Bridget Vessey), receiving 1st place at a women’s competition at Oireactas na Gaeilge. Mairin had already won the coveted Corn Ui Riada (O Riada Cup) at Oireactas na Gaeilge, the highest honor in sean nos singing at the Oireactas, when she moved to Boston with her husband and four (now five) children in 1986. Since then, she has sung for many an occasion. |
Accompaniment
|
