With the St. Patrick’s Day season upon us, public television stations across the
Filmed live last April during a concert at the Irish Arts Center in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood by Academy and Emmy Award-winning director Paul Wagner, Absolutely Irish is replete with jigs, reels, airs, ballads, contemporary versions of familiar old tunes, and instrumental jams featuring some fine players — young and old alike.
Irish music impresario Mick Moloney, who has recorded some 40 albums of Irish traditional music and hosted several nationally syndicated folk music programs for American Public Television, leads this concert performance and also sings “McNally’s Row of Flats,” a Harrigan & Hart song of old New York. Absolutely Irish also features performances by Irish fiddlers Eileen Ivers, Liz Carroll and Athena Tergis; multi-instrumentalist Seamus Egan (founder of Solas); 80 year-old fiddler Mike Rafferty; guitarist John Doyle; vocalists Karan Casey, who sings the anti-war song “King’s Shilling,” Susan McKeown, who sings the ballad “Fair London Town,” and Robbie O’Connell, who sings the romantic old number, “Flower of Kilkenny;” uilean piper Jerry O’Sullivan; whistle player and Cherish The Ladies leader Joannie Madden; and dancers Niall O’Leary ,Darrah Carr, and 85 year-old Jo McNamara. Others captured live in performance include Marc Benford, Brendan Doyle and Billy McComiskey. The entire ensemble closes out the concert with a performance of “Leaving Liverpool.”
Absolutely Irish is a presentation of WGBH and American Focus, Inc. Check your local TV listings or your local PBS station’s Web site for information on air dates and times.
Last 5 posts in Celtic Corner
- Celtic Classic Returns to Bethlehem, PA in Late September - September 4th, 2008
- Ronnie Drew, Founding Member of The Dubliners, 1934-2008 - August 19th, 2008
- Irish Festivals Springing Up Across the Northeast, Midwest - May 17th, 2008
- 'Absolutely Irish' Concert Film Airs on Public TV Stations - March 10th, 2008
- Celtic Festivals On Tap in Pennsylvania This Winter - January 18th, 2008
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
