Chulrua &
Ceili A Comin’
The Buffalo Irish Center is
the place to be on Wednesday, May 12 at 7:30 when
the trio Chulrua is in concert. The
band features Paddy O’Brien on Accordion, Patrick Ourceau on Fiddle, and Tim
Egan with vocals and guitar accompaniment.
The band’s web site promises more than great music at their
concerts. “We also talk a bit about
our instruments and the different types of tunes played in the tradition, tell
a few stories about how particular tunes got their names, and about the
musicians who composed or handed down the tunes and songs we play.” Paddy O’Brien’s knowledge of Irish
Traditional Music would be hard to top!
The admission is $12 for the General Public, $10 for members of the
Buffalo Irish Arts Society, and $6 for students.
Membership
applications will be accepted at the door, if you would like to join the
Buffalo Irish Arts Society. The dues are
$20 for single memberships and $28 for families.
Ceili Update
We’re also pulling out
the stops for our next ceili on Saturday, May 15 at 8 p.m. in the Buffalo Irish Center. At our
April meeting, the members in attendance voted to give everyone a break on the
admission: only $5 for adults and
children under 16 will be admitted free!
What a great way to introduce newcomers to set & ceili dancing!
The Buffalo
Irish Arts Musicians will provide the tunes.
And callers Shane Devlin & Ellen Lynch will guide you step by step
through the: Caledonian,
Siege of Ennis, Sliabh Luachra, Corofin Plain, Claire Lancers, Haymaker’s Jig,
Paris, and Baile Bhuirne Jig. Old-time
waltzes will round out the evening.
Musicians will be rehearsing on
Monday, May 10th at 8 p.m. in the Library of the Buffalo
Irish Center.
How can you help make this ceili
a success?
- Show up! To be blunt, the people who enjoy
set dancing have not impressed me with attendance at ceilis and concerts
and this year. Our musicians have a
much better track record! (Yes
dancers, that is a challenge! But
seriously, we can only sponsor events if we have people there.) We hope to see you at other activities
as well. Print out our events
calendar for May and post it on your refrigerator!
- Bring
Finger Food for the
intermission.
- Donate a
gift to the Chinese Auction. Louise Brennan will be doing the honors
once again.
Rochester
Ceili Report
About seven of members
went to McGinnity’s in Rochester on April 30th for a ceili sponsored
by the Tom Finuacane Chapter! Great
music and great dancing! It is
impressive to see the number of students from St. John Fisher and the University of Rochester on the floor.
And I think more prizes from the Chinese Auction went home to Buffalo instead of Rochester! Thanks
to the organizers in Rochester for a fine evening.
Final Month for Thursday Night Dancing
After May 27, Thursday
night dancing goes on hiatus for the summer.
Attendance tends to fall off a bit with warmer weather around. But keep on supporting the Innisfree Ceili
Dancers on Tuesday nights at the Irish Center throughout the year, and try your best to make
it to Thursdays at Ulrich’s Tavern, at the corner of Ellicott & Virginia. There have been some nights where we barely
had enough for a set. And I’ll be
teaching summer school on Tuesday & Thursday nights beginning halfway
through May. So someone needs to take my
place! Please! Lately on Thursday nights, we have been
dancing the newly revived Claddagh Set from County Mayo.
Irish
Center
Pub Nite
Our musicians will
also be the featured entertainment in the pub of the Irish Center on Friday, May 21 starting at 9 p.m. It always looks great when our dancers demonstrate
some sets! And the Irish Center is taking note of which groups bring more
people into the pub, in light of the financial constraints posed by the smoking
ban. The more of us there, the better we
look as an organization, and the more likely we are to be invited back.
May Meeting
Our May meeting on Sunday, May 15 will be a particularly
important one, as we will discuss policies regarding the selection of musicians
for club events. OK, not exciting stuff,
but some non-musicians in attendance might be helpful for sharing some outside
perspectives. We need to tackle this
issue in May, so we have a fun time at our:
June Meeting
& Picnic in Chestnut Ridge Park
Save Sunday, June 20 at 1 p.m. We will head back to Orchard Park for
our second annual picnic, seisiun, and mini kinda-sorta ceili on concrete! The event is free for all members. We only ask that you bring a dish to pass and
anything you wish to drink (not in a glass bottle). Last year, we supplied the pop, but there
were too many left-overs. We hope it
will be more simple if everyone BYOBs, both alcoholic & non-alcoholic. We will have lemonade & iced tea on hand
though. For non-members, we request a
donation of $5 per person. Or better yet,
become a member and attend for free.
Annual Convention
Many of our members attended the North American Convention
of Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann, the international organization of which we are
a branch. It was hosted by the
Mid-Atlantic Region in Parsippany, New
Jersey.
They were all over the place: at
seisiuns, ceilis, music & dance workshops, and certainly the vendors’
tables. The emphasis was on getting more
young people involved with traditional music, and many younger ensembles from
the mid-Atlantic area were playing in the hotel’s lobby throughout Saturday
afternoon. Jim Lonergan has some photographic
highlights online, in addition to the quarterly Fin-Wyn
Seisiun at O’Lacy’s Pub in Batavia.
As for official
business, both the Northeast Region and North American Province supported a
resolution in the Irish Senate to make Irish an official working language of
the European Union. New provincial
officers were elected as mentioned in a past newsletter. And talk about close votes! Our own Joe Brown was narrowly defeated in
his bid to be Provincial Auditor by one vote.
One vote! His wife Sally was
distraught over the outcome……
Summer Music & Dance Workshops
There are many opportunities
over the summer to study Irish music & dance. Unfortunately this year, two occur
simultaneously the week after July 4th: the Irish Arts Week in the
Catskills where Brendan & Glenda Brown will teach set dancing and the Swannanoa
Gathering in North
Carolina.
You could travel to Ireland the week before for the famous Willie Clancy Week and stay for
the South Sligo Summer School in
Tubercurry with Jim Coughlin.
Mark Warford will be
attending Irish Week at the Augusta
Heritage Center in Elkins, West Virginia in late July.
In early August, Goderich, Ontario hosts a Celtic
Festival with a full week of workshops.
Gaelic College in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia specializes in Scottish workshops but will
bring some folks from Willie Clancy Week over for an Irish workshop in Vermont.
All these options make
decision-making tough! But keep playing
and dancing over the summer!
Tunes of the Month
Well we don’t have any
new tunes this month because our tune editor in Ireland. And I
suppose she thinks that’s a good excuse.
While Diana Straube is skipping in Skibberean, revisit some of our older tunes on the
website. BTW, Tim and Diana have sent
e-mail back. They’re having a great time
at seisiuns and ceilis every night!