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Other Ceili Group Events:
April 4, 2008
Patrick Ourceau & Eamon O'Leary - Traditional Irish Dance Tunes and Songs
Friday, April 4, 2008; 8:00 PM
Commodore Barry Club / Irish Center
Carpenter Lane and Emlen Street
Phila., Pa 19119 / (610) 486-2220
Admission: $15, PCG members, $13
At a session, Patrick with his fiddle nearly dances in his seat, both feet tapping out the rhythm, bright eyes full of humor, smiling, winking, ever ready with a warm gesture for newcomers ... Eamon, the essence of understatement and disheveled reserve, his guitar playing and his presence an anchor beneath the flights of melody.
Patrick Ourceau & Eamon O'Leary are both master musicians.
Patrick Ourceau was born in Paris, France in 1967. He first heard traditional Irish music on recordings, liked it instantly and decided it was the music he wanted to play. He is now known as a great fiddler, but it was not his first instrument of choice. "The concertina was tops on my list but it was hard to find one, living in France. And so I decided to go with the fiddle. Maybe one day I'll still play the concertina." He started playing at about 12 years of age, and his primary reason for coming to the US in 1989 was to play Irish music in the thriving trad scene in New York City. "I knew of fiddlers there like Andy McGann, Paddy Reynolds, Tony DeMarco and Brian Conway, and I thought it would be really good for me. Why not?" Patrick has since had a fine career in his almost 20 years in the US playing with the noted Clare concertina wizard Gearoid O'hAllmhurain and with button accordionist Paddy O'Brien's popular trio "Chulrua". His repertoire is dominated by his preference fo r the beautifully crafted, sinewy, lyrical music of the East Clare / East Galway tradition. He has become well known in that regional tradition, respected as much in Ireland - where he spent much time at the feet of master fiddlers like Paddy Canny and others - as he is in the United States. Patrick recently left New York and currently resides in Montreal, Canada.
Eamon O'Leary was born in Dublin in 1972. He started playing the guitar in his teens. "I didn't really come to Irish traditional music until, I suppose, my late teens. It was through friends that I'd made along the way who happened to play, and I just began to soak it up that way". Eamon didn't expect to be playing Irish music professionally when he arrived in New York in the late 1980s. "I started hanging out around a café on St. Mark's Place where we used to play every week. It was an Irish-owned place and the enthusiasm with which they responded to the music was sort of inspiring". Soon he was playing in sessions around the city with various musicians, including Patrick. Eamon is an outstanding guitar accompanist with a great ear for key and chord changes. He is also an accomplished tenor banjo player with an impressive repertoire.
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May, 17, 2008
Sean Tyrrell... The Cry of a Dreamer
Sat., May 17, 2008; 8:00 PM
Commodore Barry Club / Irish Center
Carpenter Lane and Emlen Street
Phila., Pa 19119 / (856) 236-2717
Admission: $15, PCG members, $13
Sean Tyrrell... A native of the slower moving West of Ireland, Sean Tyrell was surrounded by music all his life. During the 60's he performed in Galway's folk clubs, honing his skills and rubbing shoulders with a host of celebrated musicians. He emigrated in 1968 and slid into the folk club scene in Greenwich Village. The 70's took him west to San Francisco and a diet of Irish music sessions. Here his reputation as a singer of songs took root. He returned to Ireland in the late 70's and continued composing, but seldom played in public. In 1978 he accepted employment with the University of Galway, in the heart of the Burren in County Clare. It's hard to avoid music in this part of Ireland and soon Sean was lured back into the scene. Eventually swapping the Burren for Bell Harbour, close to the Galway border, Sean divided his time between mussel farming and his music. He became fascinated by the poem 'The Midnight Court' (all 1,206 lines), writt en in the 17th century by Brian Merriman. He became possessed with a desire to set this work to music. The feat was achieved with much success when the Druid Theatre in Galway staged Sean Tyrrell's 'traditional music opera'. Sean soon embarked on a solo CD project, "Cry of a Dreamer". The album was released in 1994 and greeted with great acclaim, voted Best Folk Album of the Year by Folk Roots and Hotpress. In 1996 the CD was picked up by Hannibal/Rykodisc and selected for a Spotlight Review by Billboard Magazine calling Sean "the genuine article!" In 1999 he released his second solo effort, "The Orchard". Sean has toured Ireland, England, the Continent, the US and Australia as a solo act and with some of the luminaries of Irish traditional music, including Kevin Glackin and Ronan Brown, Davy Spillane, Paddy Keenan, and Tommy Peoples.
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