Catskills Irish Arts Week 2006

Here is the link for Catskill Irish Arts Week - if you love Irish Traditional Music, you should be there.

Here is a page of photos of the Fiddle Class I took with Sliabh Luachra (Clare) style fiddler and scholar Matt Cranitch

A review of the 2006 CIAW on the Summer Festivals Page

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Here are some photos of CIAW 2006

 

A late night session (2AM) at Stack's Pub on Friday included about 30 musicians at various times. The leaders for this intermediate level jam were the sensational young fiddler (and twice All-Ireland Champion) Patrick Mangan, Tina Lech and Kathleen Gavin, but there were lots of other very high level players there - This banjo player (who played lefty on an upside down regular set up banjo) was rock steady and knew every tune in a four hour session of continual playing. Jimmy, Tina, Hannah, Kevin, Mike and Armand and I represented Providence... the legendary Josephine Keegan came by just to listen.

 

 While this session was in progress, another session at a nearby pub was held down by Brian Conway, Maeve Donnelly and Seamus Connolly! and there were at least three other sessions and a ceili dance going on at the same time with Tony DeMarco, Matt Cranitch, etc. etc. Of course, I was paying attention to the fiddlers, but meanwhile the sessions were overflowing with wonderful flutes, accordions, whistles, pipes and even an occasional guitar or hammered dulcimer player. Friends who attended the singing sessions were overwhelmed at the number of wonderful singers and great songs. Probably if you are in to these areas, names like Aoife Clancy, Chris Droney, Joanie Madden, Mike Rafferty, Mary Coogan, Paul DeGrae will ring some major bells.
Brian Conway is without argument one of the very best Irish fiddlers in the world. He gave a brilliant Master Class at McGrath's pub - the best fiddle workshop I've ever seen - and then immediately sat down with this 7 year old to carefully go over some tunes with her. Helping out is Patrick Mangan. This is wonderful, and typical, of Brian, Patrick and many of the master musicians at this festival. They love this music and go far beyond the call of duty to help and be accessible to young players. Many of the Instructors when playing at the concerts dedicated their tunes to their students. There was less ego and more dedication to the music among the stars at this event than at any other festival or camp I've ever seen.
What does it take to get kids excited about playing music? Think this kind of love and support would help?

This is a fiddle jam at Gavin's pub on monday night. The official leader was the brilliant Galway fiddler Maeve Donnelly with AnnMarie Acosta and Phillippe Varlet, but there was a room full of good student players. Here are Kevin and next to him a 7 year old sitting right in the front row and playing along. This is not about age, or even skill, this is about learning the music at the side of the masters.

This session lasted at least four hours and there was continual playing with very few repeated tunes. Between each tune or set of tunes there was a brief interval of not more than about 20 or 30 seconds. When someone other than the leaders started a tune, people listened and if the player was playing confidently with reasonably good rhythm then everyone would join in. If someone started and played badly or much slower than was appropriate, then everyone listened without joining in and when the person finished, one of the leaders would start a new tune. There was no verbal criticism. So, that's just embarassing enough to keep down the number of sour notes, while giving everyone who wants to introduce a tune a chance. Kevin and the little girl both started tunes and the group played along.

Josephine Keegan gives a Master Class at the Blackthorn Pub as Kathleen Gavin plays piano in the background. I admire Kathleen -- how good do you have to be to be the piano player for the most famous piano player in Irish music history? As with every other instructor at the festival, they were gracious and supportive of all the learners. When Josephine was asked whether Sean Maguire had influenced her playing she said, "Everyone you hear influences you, and you can learn something from everyone."

 

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