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THE IRISH
MUSIC SCENE
Article &
Photographs |
| THE LOCAL VENUE The Turloughmore Ceilí band from County Clare, Ireland, performs in many venues Lismore, Belfast, Galway, Dublin and Tuftonboro, NH. Tuftonboro, NH? Yep, many Irish music makers have grown fond of our bit of New England. This affection is owed in part to the leader of the local "Celtic Traditions". band, Greg Heppe. Greg and his wife, Teri Heppe, own the Tuftonboro General Store, a gathering place for Tuftonboro locals. Both are retired school teachers, "Until it wasn't fun anymore." Greg observes. Now, in their spare time they provide a place for visiting Irish & Scottish bands to perform in the Lakes Region. The venue, an old white church near the corner of 109A and Federal Corner Road, has concerts about six times a year featuring musicians visiting mostly from Ireland. Many of these groups are instrumentalist, playing traditional Irish jigs and reels. This fast paced music evolved for dancing and according to Greg, to understand this music as a player or listener, you really need to dance it. Then the rhythms and speed begin to make sense. The blur of movement in a RiverDance performance notwithstanding, reels and jigs are meant to be danced by real human beings. Among the visitors brought by Old White Church Productions - the name Teri & Greg use for this endeavor - have included Denis Liddy, Paddy Keenan, The Kane Sisters, Reaganta, The Canniffe Family and three members of "Lunasa", Kevin Crawford, Cillian Vallely, and Paul Meehan. Tentatively planned for September a different Celtic tradition - traditional Scottish singers, Alison McMorland and Geordie McIntyre. The church, originally named the First Christian Meeting House, was built in 1839 and moved to its present location in 1869. With original tin walls and ceiling - it's natural acoustics are really excellent. Heated by two antique wood stoves, it has capacity for approximately 125+ attendees. That makes it one of the larger venues for traveling Irish bands in the New England. Greg observes that his venue is following the lead of long time Irish music purveyors, Paddy Keenan and Billy Kelly of Ossian Publications & Music Store. Paddy & Billy have been hosts to visiting Irish bands for years. Their own venue is their converted barn called Ossian's Loft located in Loudon, New Hampshire. SESSIUNS Our local venue grew out of Greg Heppe's life long love, learning and playing Irish music. Primarily a flute player, he not only arranges for the visits of bands but also carries on the tradition of post concert jam sessions at his home across the street from the church. Sessions, or more properly Irish "sessiuns", are social events that have always been part of the Irish musical scene. Often with food but always with drink, "Another Guinness!" is often heard, and there are no curfews on how long they last. Musicians of all types are typically welcome to attend, play and learn . While there is some special etiquette - one doesn't fake it, you really need to be able to play the tune everyone's decided on - anyone interested is invited to listen, learn and, if competent, play. Sessiuns, by the way, happen all over New England. Usually, they are populated by local musicians who get together regularly in a favorite pub, restaurant or home. Greg is an enthusiast so he'll travel an hour or so several times a month to participate. Each sessiun has it's own sound and style of music. Gregg says the learning opportunity is significant but we assume he attends for the music but we should point out that he also has a dog named "Guinness". The Heppe's country store is one of the few economically viable county stores in New England. Greg, Teri and their son, Mike, operate the store as a full time job while Greg somehow finds time to participate in his band "Celtic Tradition" part time. That band, made up of Greg on tin whistle and flute, Ramona Connelly on the fiddle, Kevin Sheehan on mandolin, Dave Durham on guitar & banjo and Linda Laporte on the bodhran. The latter is a traditional wooden bodied, goat skin covered drum. The name is pronounced "bow_rawn" and it's played with a double ended drum stick called a cipin or beater. It was originally a husk sifter - a pan used to shake the husks off grains. Gaelic peasants first converted the sifter to a musical instrument. It's deceivingly simply looking, like a tambourine, but Greg insists it is extremely subtle and requires real musicianship.
Celtic Tradition plays most Friday nights at the Cun Na Mara restaurant in Bristol, New Hampshire. The lively restaurant/bar is known for it's excellent traditional Irish dishes by owner and chef Ray Gardiner. Ray has also decided to sponsor "Celtic Tradition's first album. Tentatively titled "A Taste of Cun Na Mara", it's due out early this fall. The Cun Na Mara has sessiuns itself, too. Jeff Baker leads a traditional Irish music sessiun alternative Sundays (2nd and 4th Sunday) and there, too, musicians are welcome. On occasion, a sessiun will focus on singing only. Actually, sessiuns happen all over New England. If you are in Portland, ME on a Sunday, stop in Brian Boru Irish pub late afternoons or Blue, the Portland night club, on Wednesdays evening. In Manchester, NH, try Monday evenings at The Shaskeen downtown. These pubs and bands have a real camaraderie and commonly recommend each other to visitors.
SCENE(S) For many years, there has been a very active Celtic music scene in New England and around the world for that matter. Long before Enya began to have major play on American radio, the Irish music scene was active. How long? About two thousand years. If you 'Google', say, "Irish music", you'll not only get references to The Clancy Brothers - credited with sparking the US love affair with Irish music - you'll also gather 'hits' from around the places you'd never have imagined. How about a website dedicated to the Alaskan Irish music scene? Celtic music evolved out of the folk traditions of the Celtic peoples of Western Europe. Typically, we think of it as being the music of Ireland and Scotland but it includes parts of Wales, Cornwall, the French coastal area of Brittany and the Isle of Man. Even pieces of Portugal have claim to their own Celtic traditions. But it is the Irish and Scottish musical connections that are the most tightly woven. Currently the music scenes of Celtic peoples in Canada and the United States are among the most intense. 'Irish traditional music' is a very broad term that includes many different types of singing and instrumental music performed by Irish people and other nationalities. The types range from the fast dance music - jigs, reels and hornpipes - to the slower, listening music of ballads and airs. String, wind, and "free-reed" instruments such as the concertina predominate. Bodruns, beautiful and deceptively simple looking drums, often participates. As Greg points out, the music is usually played melodic rather than harmonic, meaning that everyone plays the same tune. He suspects this is because it is often played in circumstances where the players are working together for the first time or irregularly so just getting the tune right is enough challenge. A FINAL DEFINITION Irish music has a living tradition. The tunes that lay claim to being Irish number in the thousands and that number is not static. New songs are constantly born out of sessiuns of talented musicians all over the world. It is a music of performers, not academics. It's masters are known more for creativity than for scholarship. While it is conservative - some of the songs being played today are hundred of years old - it is changing and amalgamating with other musical forms. Witness The Pogues' fusion of traditional Irish music with punk rock. Still, it's heart is conservative and the older works are still held in high esteem. Probably most distinctly, as Greg Heppe, Celtic Tradition and the visiting musicians at the Old White Church venue demonstrate, it is a music performed for love rather than money. Ah . . . Erin Go Brath. |
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| Links: Tuftonboro
General Store & Old White Productions - http://www.tuftonborogeneralstore.com |
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