It is wonderful to welcome Michael Tubridy, a native of Kilrush, Co. Clare and a founding member of the Chieftains, back to New York for two special shows in Queens and Rockland County.
Tubridy, who plays the flute and the concertina, is also an accomplished sean nos dancer and teacher. He will link up with his old bandmate in the Castle Ceili Band based in Dublin in the 1960s, James Keane, who can still fire up the old accordion when called upon.
Keane relishes opportunities like this to take the stage with fellow musicians who encouraged him and his older brother Sean along the way.
Tubridy will reprise a concert he did last year at the New York Irish Center on Saturday, October 5 at 7:30 p.m. in Long Island City (10-40 Jackson Avenue) with Keane and piano accompanist Annemarie Acosta-Williams.
The next day the pair heads up to Blauvelt and the Rockland Irish-American Cultural Center (284 Convent Road) for a 2 p.m. matinee show, and the guest accompanist is Keith Sammut.
Both of these shows are organized by Craobh Ull Mor CCE and for more information contact phone 845-499-3703 or email [email protected].
On Thursday, October 3, there will be a rather intriguing mix of traditional music, percussive and interpretive dance that includes improvisation and original composition performed by four exceptional artists displaying their various talents.
Working in a residency at the Jalopy Theater in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn (www.jalopy.biz) are two highly expressive contemporary dancers in Sandy Silva and Nick Gareiss.
Silva has carved out an impressive percussive dance card featuring highly artistic movements for various forms of roots music like Quebecois, Appalachia, Cape Breton and Celtic for years.
Gareiss is a young genius who performs on both sides of the pond in his sensitive and interpretive stepping in old timey music, Irish and other forms of percussive step. I have admired his skillful and enthusiastic approach to dance since first spying him at the University of Limerick where he was studying some time ago.
They are matched on the music side by two musicians with a fair amount of experience in producing dance music — Guy Kluecevsek, an accordionist supremo and fiddler (and hoofer) Cleek Schrey.
Klucevsek had released 20 recordings and performed on film scores and has worked with Silva in the past along with a mixed bag of popular recording artists. Schrey is known up and down the East Coast for his old-timey music and also his considerable chops on the Irish music scene, and has worked with Gareiss on a number of occasions including at the Baltimore Fiddle Fair last year.
If you are a fan of great dancing and dance music make your way to the Jalopy next week.
Lesl Harker, a former student of the late Mike Rafferty who produced two editions of the venerable Galwegian flute player’s tune settings from his East Galway region, has two performances coming up honoring her mentor.
On Sunday, September 29 she will do an hour presentation of tunes of Old East Galway at the New Providence, New Jersey library from 2:30-3:30 p.m. (www.newprovidencelibrary.org or 908-665-0311).
On Saturday, October 5 at 8 p.m., Harker and friends will open for the Scottish group North Sea Gas at the Hurdy Gurdy Folk Club in Fairlawn, New Jersey (wwwhurdygurdyfolk.org).
Donny Golden and friends of the late Irish dancing master Jimmy Erwin who passed away this summer have organized a little gathering at the Mineola Irish American Center on Sunday, October 6 at 5 p.m.
Fiddler Sean Quinn will provide some music and Monsignor Sean Ogle, himself a former Irish dancer and teacher, will celebrate a Mass in Erwin’s memory at 6 p.m.
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