IrishMusicInfo
The Sunday Tribune Weekly Traditional Music Column by Fintan Vallely
990926
The launch of Martin Hayes' album live from Seattle notes a solid success among touring Irish players who give artistic dimension to the Celtic Tiger. While belief in his original style makes this collection for Hayes another bridge linking the serious and the popular, patient publicity has also helped expand his field of appreciation well beyond our shores. Australia is far as one can go, and here, turning over the grains of sand in the most remote spot constantly re-evaluates one's notion of the scale of Irish music sub-culture: major festivals at such as Port Ferry attract tens of thousands, a recent uilleann pipes tion—l was in Wagga Wagga, three weeks ago a big session took place at Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, last weekend a flute player travelled the hundred miles from Toowoomba to Brisbane for an evening workshop. All this puts names on the Australian map that schoolchildren do not learn. Perth perhaps has the more substantial playing and concert scene through CCƒ's Sean Doherty and Irish Studies promoter Bob Reece. But Queensland state has much music and step dance too centred on its capital, Brisbane. Even in Mount Isa, 2,000 Km NW, is the Isa-Folk club where Andy Irvine has played, and in the city too Drogheda dancer Colette Martin has been teaching steps to a hundred children since 1997. Living further up, three hours SW of Cairns, Carina and Saeed De Ridder mix Belgian and Dutch-Indonesian pedigrees, and with their three children all play Irish music. Centre to a CCƒ 'branch of the Tablelands outback' they bring disparate enthusiasts - including solid Aussie cop Chris Nelson, an uilleann piper - to session in Milanda once every three months. Three of these are of Irish descent, among them Dublin bagpiper Brendan Tully, Limerick singer Mick O'Meara and Cork piano accordionist Mary McGuinness. Eighteen hundred Km south, Adrian Jeffries is centre to Brisbane's thirty or so musicians and younger learners who make up several bands popular at weddings and Irish-related functions. Irish bars are important outlets for this music; unlike their Euro counterparts these do not grossly overcharge for Irish beers, and so have also become important foci for young Irish workers. Ten years out from Carrickfergus, Jeffries' confidence in Irish music here is marked by his making uilleann pipes full-time since 1996. Brisbane has a handful of pipers, Sydney perhaps a dozen: "Twenty years ago people did not know what pipes were", he says, "but now they are played by a lot of people. Riverdance has much to do with it". Indeed two Brisbane dancers have just gone off to join the show's cast, but if, otherwise, dance and music travel separate paths, the related cultural awareness sees a thousand dancers compete in the national Irish step dance championships in Sydney next weekend.
©Fintan Vallely, IrishMusicInfo.com
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