Friday fiddle alert for Davis Square

He puts bad guys in jail, and he is possibly the finest living Sligo-style fiddle player.

No, that’s not the premise of a new HBO series. It’s a rather silly introduction to one Brian Conway, who will be performing along with Cape Breton fiddler Kimberley Fraser and guitarist Mark Simos Friday at the Unity church near Davis Square in Somerville, as part of the notloB Folk Concerts series.

Brian Conway, at his "other" job.

Brian has fashioned a successful career in the New York criminal justice system, and is now deputy chief of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office Public Integrity Bureau. But more people know him as one of the best Irish-American fiddle players of the past generation or so, and a fine exponent of the Sligo fiddle style that Michael Coleman, Martin Wynne and Andy McGann, among others, helped make famous. In his time, Brian’s won junior and senior All-Ireland fiddle titles, has recorded with worthies like Tony DeMarco, Joe Burke and Felix Doran — in addition to putting out a couple of excellent solo albums, including “Consider the Source” in 2008 — and also plays as a member of The Pride of New York, with Billy McComiskey, Joanie Madden and Brendan Dolan. [Read more about Brian in this month's Boston Irish Reporter.]

Kimberley Fraser and Mark Simos at BCMFest 2012

We should mention that Kimberley is a pretty damn good fiddler, too, as you might’ve heard at BCMFest 2012 last month (was it really only last month?). She’s been living in Boston the past several years — is this a great town or what? — playing at places like the Canadian-American Club and Boston College’s Gaelic Roots series (and a few BCMFest events, too). Suffice it to say, Kimberley can whirl her way through those Cape Breton reels, strathspeys and marches, but has the touch for the slower, dignified pieces as well. And Mark? This is a guy who writes songs recorded by people like Alison Krauss, and is perfectly at home playing back-up guitar at a session or concert. [Here's a clip of Kimberley and Mark.]

It’s not often you get to hear two such distinctive Celtic music styles at one place and one time. So make Friday night a notloB night, and give your ears over to Brian, Kimberley and Mark. [Ticket info, etc., available at the notloB site.]

New sounds for a Monday

Throughout its nearly five years of existence, the monthly BCMFest Celtic Music Monday series at Club Passim has tried to make the phrase “something new” a regularly occurring facet of its vocabulary. These second-Monday-of-the-month shows have often been the venue for Boston-area Celtic performers to unveil a collaboration that’s been percolating for a while, whether it’s a one-off, just-for-the-helluva-it performance or the prelude to, perhaps, something long-lasting.

Neil Pearlman

Tomorrow night, Feb. 13, Celtic Music Monday will present one such brand-spankin’, shiny new ensemble — so new it doesn’t have a name yet. But we do know that it’s under the direction of keyboardist Neil Pearlman, and that he’ll be joined by bagpiper Elijah Wolcott, guitarist/mandolinist Eric McDonald and fiddler Jenna Moynihan, and the performance will feature Scottish music that sits squarely between traditional and contemporary.

Neil, who blends Scottish and Cape Breton piano accompaniment styles with jazz and world music influences, has already made his presence felt at BCMFest these past couple of years. Eric has been a mainstay at the festival and other BCMFest events over the years, while Jenna gave a warmly received performance at last fall’s BCMFest Goes West(ford) concert. We’re happy to welcome Elijah into the BCMFest fold.

So, feel like you want “something new” in  your life? Celtic Music Monday’s got just the thing. [Tickets and other info available at passim.org]

Four “Downeast” decades

February 3, 1972, saw the start of the Winter Olympics in Sapporo, Japan; the issuing of a new FCC rule stating that cable TV systems had to carry at least 20 channels; and the mysterious death of a Cairo museum director as he prepared to ship the mask of King Tut to Paris — another victim, apparently, of “Tutankhamen’s curse.”

February 3, 1972, also was the date of the very first broadcast of “Downeast Ceilidh,” which over the next four decades would bring the music of Canada’s Atlantic Provinces — New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, and especially Cape Breton — to listeners throughout the Boston area. The show began on MIT’s WTBS (later WMBR), and has been on WUMB for 10 years.

Marcia Young Palmater, the Voice (and Heart and Soul) of "Downeast Ceilidh"

Marcia Young Palmater has been overseeing “Downeast Ceilidh” since the beginning, giving Eastern Canadian ex-pats in the Boston area a little taste of home, and — perhaps even more importantly — introducing many Americans to the likes of Buddy MacMaster, Jerry Holland, Brenda Stubbert, the Barra MacNeils, J.P. Cormier, Andrea Beaton, and innumerable other performers of those unique sounds from the maritimes. (At least one couple was partly inspired to honeymoon in Nova Scotia after listening to “Downeast Ceilidh.”) And Marcia does it with that rare mix of expertise and down-home familiarity, educating and enlightening but also entertaining, and making it clear how much she absolutely loves this stuff. In fact, if you go to a concert or, even better, a dance at the Canadian-American Club, there’s a very good chance you’ll see her there (she might even be up for a Boston Set).

Tonight at 8 p.m., “Downeast Ceilidh” will have its official 40th anniversary show. Yes, yes, there’s that big football game or something on at the time, but you know what? Turn down the volume on the TV set, and put on WUMB: You’ll marvel at how well Tom Brady can throw a touchdown pass to the accompaniment of a march-strathspey-reel set.

Cheers, Marcia!

Old sounds from the young

And now, the gajillion and 11th in a continuing series of posts waxing fervently on the abundance of fine young Celtic musicians we have here in the Boston area. But just ’cause it’s said a lot doesn’t make it any less so.

This weekend will feature a pair of performances that showcase four of these talented youthful folk, none of whom is past the mid-20s mark (and all of whom, incidentally, have been part of BCMFest). Tonight at the Westford Museum will be the fiddle-guitar duo of Katie McNally and Eric McDonald. Katie and Eric began playing together regularly a few years ago, and have amassed a repertoire rooted in Scottish tradition, but with distinctly modern sounds.

Katie and Eric

Katie was a mainstay in Boston’s Celtic music scene even before she began attending Tufts (she’s a senior there now), performing with the all-girl band 5 AM, competing in the New England Scottish fiddle competition (which she won in 2009). The past couple of years she’s toured with Childsplay, the All-Star fiddle ensemble. And Katie has also made a special contribution to BCMFest by organizing and playing in the “BCMFest Goes West(ford)” benefit concert, which has been going strong for five years. (She, along with Hanneke Cassel, has the honor of being the namesake for one of Jerry Bell‘s prized goats.)

We’ve lost track of how many bands Eric appears in, but certainly among the most notable are the contra dance trio Matching Orange and Scottish super-group Cantrip. Eric’s also been active in the traditional English morris and sword dance world, as a musician for Orion Longsword and for Great Meadows Morris and Sword (he’s danced with them, too). And he’s fit comfortably into the contemporary folk/acoustic side of things, as a member of the Dave Rowe Trio.

Tomorrow night, notloB Folk/Parlour Concerts will present another twosome, Julie Metcalf and Andy Reiner, at the Loring-Greenough House in Jamaica Plain. There’ll be fiddles, violas, harmonicas, banjos, octave mandolins, and a bunch of tunes and songs — “delicate and raging, familiar and foreign,” as they describe it.

Julie and Andy

Worcester native Julie began playing the violin at age 4, and studied classical violin at BU’s College of Fine Arts, but we know her very well as a musician in the Celtic and Appalachian vein. She was a founding member of the Folk Arts Quartet, a pioneering “Chambergrass” group, and the Paper Star Trio, and has been a welcome addition to the area contra dance circuit. Julie also has one of the best, most luminous “stage smiles” around.

Like Julie, Andy came from a very musical family — the Reiners are famous for putting together “Fiddle Hell” every November, with jam sessions, workshops and concerts covering just about every folk/acoustic brand of fiddle. Some of us remember Andy back when he was rocking out with a Celtic “speed metal” band called Devil in the Kitchen, but he’s probably most familiar as a member of the impossible-to-define Blue Moose & the Unbuttoned Zippers (Scandinavian polskas, English folk songs, old-timey roof-raisers, and very original compositions). Andy spent part of last fall traveling through Southeast Asia with the Earth Stringband, so who knows — maybe there’ll be a Thai tune or two in the mix.

[Note: If you miss Katie and Eric, by the way, they'll be appearing in the notloB series on March 2. And if you're suspecting that "notloB" might be a meme from a certain comedy sketch, you're right.]

Young people are bound to wander, but here’s hoping that these four (and their many quite talented colleagues) never stray too far away from Boston.

At the Roots of it all

Seamus Connolly, the man behind Gaelic Roots.

Say the name “Gaelic Roots” to most any Celtic music-lover who’s been around Boston for the past decade or more, and you’re likely to get a faraway expression of nostalgia in response.

That’s because the Gaelic Roots Summer School and Festival at Boston College was a dearly-loved event that, for many, ended far too soon. For one week in June, the BC Main Campus would be awash in fiddlers, accordionists, flutists, guitarists and other instrumentalists, as well as singers and dancers, who took classes from some of the most prominent figures in Irish, Scottish, Cape Breton and other traditions (a very partial list might include Andy Irvine, Matt Cranitch, Cathal Hayden, Rodney Miller, Catriona MacDonald, Len Graham, Martin O’Connor, Michael Tubridy, Mary Bergin, Doug McPhee…). Of course, there were plenty of other people who came for the sessions, the concerts, or just to soak in the atmosphere. [Here's a clip of the Harney School of Irish Dance performing at the festival.]

Gaelic Roots session on The Quad, 2002.

The festival ended after 2003, partly as a result of stringent post-9/11 visa and travel requirements for performers from overseas that made organizing the event a logistical nightmare. But there was more to it than that, as the festival’s creator and guiding spirit Seamus Connolly explained in an interview: “We must not forget that we at Boston College have a primary responsibility toward our students, and holding Gaelic Roots in June meant that few, if any of them, had a chance to experience it.”

At the same time, Seamus said, he and other Gaelic Roots organizers felt “an obligation to the larger community, because they were there for us.” Thus was born the Gaelic Roots Music, Song, Dance, Workshop and Lecture Series, which continues, albeit on a smaller scale, the festival’s mission of bringing to BC outstanding traditional music performers. Like the Gaelic Roots of old, the series’ events are open to the public — but they’re free of charge.

Hanneke Cassel

The Gaelic Roots spring 2012 schedule starts tomorrow night with a concert by Hanneke Cassel, one of BCMFest’s favorite musicians/dance callers/fashionistas. If you’ve never experienced her transformative brand of Scottish-American fiddle, especially with her able accompanists Ariel Friedman on cello and Christopher Lewis on guitar, this is a perfect opportunity (especially because Hanneke invariably spends most of the year touring just about every continent in the world). The concert begins at 6:30 p.m. and is taking place on BC’s Brighton Campus at 2101 Commonwealth Avenue — the Gaelic Roots site will help you get there.

Other Gaelic Roots performers this semester are one-time Cherish the Ladies vocalist Cathie Ryan (April 12), and a potent pair in Seamus Begley and Oisin Mac Diarmada (May 2). On March 29, Seamus will gather some musician friends for a good old-fashioned Irish ceili, which will include participatory dancing. (Don’t worry, we’ll remind you about all these as they draw nearer.)

Gaelic Roots the Series may never fully replace Gaelic Roots the Festival, but the spirit — and the great music — lives on.

 

BCMFest 2012: The Echoes Remain (or some poetic @#$% like that), pt. 2

(Here’s pt. 1, in case you missed it)

It was unseasonably warm for the second day of BCMFest, but we didn’t hear a lot of complaints. Nice to be able to walk around Harvard Square without a heavy coat — heck, you could practically roll up your shirtsleeves — while going back and forth between Club Passim and the First Parish Cambridge church for the day’s events.

*This year saw the debut of “The Children’s Corner,” with events and activities for kids and families. After a brief parade from Passim to First Parish and up to The Attic, little folks and big folks settled in to hear expressive storyteller Joe Keane start off the proceedings with the tale of the amazing Pookah. Later, the mother of a pre-schooler in the audience acknowledged that she wondered whether her little one would actually sit still long enough to enjoy Joe’s story. No need to worry, she said: “He was spellbound.” There’s power in those old stories, especially when they’re told the way Joe tells them.

Fun in the "Children's Corner."

*The Attic also had events to join in on, like an Irish music session led by those wonderful lads of The Stoneybatter Band.

Tunes with The Stoneybatter Band. (Photo by Mike Passarini)

…and Scottish country dance with Boston’s branch of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society.

Stepping around The Attic with RSCDS. (Photo by Mike Passarini)

Neil Pearlman, being ubiquitous. (Photo by Mike Passarini)

*One of the hardest-workin’ guys at BCMFest this year was Neil Pearlman. Not only did he perform at the Friday night “Roots and Branches” concert in Passim, he trooped right on over to play for the Scottish Ceilidh portion of The Boston Urban Ceilidh. On Saturday, he did a set with his family’s band, Highland Soles, and with his own group, Scottish Infusion. Neil will be playing at BCMFest’s Feb. 13 Celtic Music Monday show with his latest set of collaborators (more on that later). He only just moved to Somerville last fall, and we’re glad he’s making himself at home.

The Cirque du Celtique, with the Incredible Two-Man Box Player (Photo by Mike Passarini)

*Another hard-workin’ guy was Elias Alexander, who was the ringleader for the inaugural BCMFest “Cirque du Celtique.” When Elias wasn’t busy rounding up people to take part in the Cirque (“Would you be the Bearded Lady? We have a dress just right for you”), he was in the Performer Hospitality area tinkering with all manner of costumes and other devices to help foster the carnival atmosphere. And Elias was blessed with that highly desirable residue of hard work, namely good luck: A childhood friend he hadn’t seen in more than a decade happened to be visiting that weekend within shouting distance of Boston, so Elias convinced him to come on up and join the fun; his friend arrived just a few minutes before the Cirque was due to start, and he was conscripted as a juggler — a task for which he proved quite capable, thanks.

When the Cirque had done its stint, Elias had himself duct-taped onto a pair of stilts, grabbed his bagpipes, and led a parade out into Harvard Square. But what’s bagpipes without drums? Fortunately, Elias found the Square’s resident percussionists for a little jamming. Here’s how it looked.

*You know, most of us probably don’t think too much about what our footsteps sound like (except maybe in this instance). But this is clearly something of great interest to Nic Gareiss. Nic is more than an exciting stepdancer with his own unique style; he’s also is a foot percussionist in every sense of the word — in addition to tapping, he’ll slide his feet over the surface he’s dancing on with varying intensity, depending on the effect he wants. It’s as interesting to listen to as it is to watch. So on Saturday, as Nic got set to dance during a performance with Kimberley Fraser and Mark Simos, he first sprinkled a few pinches of sand and grit on his little portion of the stage, to provide just the right amount of friction to produce just the right sound.

Nic Gareiss and those little grains of sand.

(In case you might wonder, this is not what he does when he’s finished prepping his dance area.)

*It’s always great to see young performers and acts that are new to BCMFest and/or the area’s Celtic scene, like the fiddles-and-guitar group Chasing Redbird, sweet-sounding Fellswater and Gaelic-inspired singer-songwriter Kyle Carey. But what a pleasure to have someone like a Ken Perlman– who’s been an inspiration to so many for so long ’round these parts — join the BCMFest fun this year, and as an added bonus, to have him accompanied by Janine Randall, one of our all-time favorite Cape Breton-style piano players.

Ken Perlman and Janine Randall in The Parlor.

Chasing Redbird in The Sanctuary

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Saturday night’s finale concert is meant to be the grand, finishing touch for BCMFest, a richly textured snapshot of the sounds, styles, influences and personalities that infuse Boston’s Celtic music scene. This year’s concert organizers, Matt Heaton and Flynn Cohen, did a yeoman’s job in making the finale fulfill its purpose. Whether playing as a duo, or as part of various combinations — including Matt with his wife, Shannon, and Flynn with his newly retooled band Annalivia — they traversed a great expanse of the Celtic territory, and made some excellent music in the process, the crowning touch a Bothy Band tribute. You really hadda be there, but if you weren’t, here you go.

Flynn and Matt, working up to the big finish.

 

So many people, so many stories, to BCMFest 2012. This was just a few of them — you’re welcome to share your own. It’s de rigeur to thank the people who made it possible, but really, we just have to. And number one on the list is everyone who volunteered, whether directing festival-goers to Friday night’s Boston Urban Ceilidh, lugging all the food donated by some kind Harvard Square restaurants, or simply putting out (or picking up) chairs. See you next year.*

(*But keep BCMFest in your plans until then — we’ve got Celtic Music Mondays and other things going on. Check back here, or at bcmfest.com, for all the news.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BCMFest 2012: The Echoes Remain (or something poetic like that), part 1

Was it really a week ago when we donned red and black (the official BCMFest colors, in case you didn’t know) and made our way to Harvard Square for BCMFest 2012?

Eden Forman, left, and Abbie MacQuarrie rock out those roots and branches. (Photo by Sean Smith)

Some of us went to the “Roots and Branches” kick-off concert in Club Passim, ably organized by and featuring Eden Forman and Abbie MacQuarrie, who have been part of BCMFest since they were in junior high. Now they have nine years of varied and exciting musical experiences to draw on, and they shared these at the concert, with a whole bunch of guest stars: Laura Cortese, Emerald Rae (Eden’s sister), Jefferson Hamer, Neil Pearlman, Grace Van’t Hof, Hanneke Cassel, Siobhan Butler and Nic Gareiss. If you want an idea of what it looked/sounded like, well, here you go.

 

Meanwhile, just seconds away was BCMFest’s dance party, The

Dave Eisenstadter makes the contra dance run at The Boston Urban Ceilidh. (Photo by Sean Smith)

Boston Urban Ceilidh, in its new location at The Atrium. People were having a fine old time moving their feet to the joyful contra dance sounds of the Reiner Brothers, Andy and Eric, under the direction of caller Dave Eisenstadter. And when the contra portion was over, the focus shifted to Breton dances, courtesy of Ray Price and Triple Spiral.

Breton dance at the ceilidh.

Needless to say, it was mesmerizing, and pretty cool.

Now, with the concert at Passim having concluded at 9 p.m., there was still plenty of the evening and left to enjoy, so why not cruise over to the BUC and keep the party going? Of course, we thought it might be fun to let people around Harvard Square know what they were missing, so a bunch of us paraded down Palmer Street to Brattle Street, to the strains of Abbie’s fiddle and assorted kazoos and vocals.

Parading through Harvard Square. (Photo by Mike Passarini)

Hanneke led us in a brief alfresco Virginia Reel, and then the procession continued up Brattle, right on Church Street, and into The Atrium. Shortly thereafter, it was time for the Scottish Ceilidh, and so Neil and his band got those reels going.

Neil Pearlman keys the Scottish Ceilidh. (Photo by Mike Passarini)

And Hanneke psyched herself up for her no-holds-barred brand of calling.

Hanneke at the ready.

And the people danced.

So, that was opening night of BCMFest 2012. More tomorrow. Promise.