Celtic Woman's elaborate show reflects a changing Ireland

[Don]

By Andrew Gilbert
UNION-TRIBUNE

May 7, 2007

For fans of traditional Irish music, these are the best of times.

Rather than melting away in the face of the Celtic Tiger's economic boom, the Irish music scene is awash with brilliant, young musicians dedicated to exploring and expanding their musical heritage. Extensive U.S. tours over the past decade by virtuosic bands such as Lunasa, Danu, Dervish, Kila and Altan have won new converts to traditional Irish music's sublime melodies and churning rhythms.


So what to make of the Celtic Woman phenomenon? With a slick, platinum-selling CD and DVD featuring a bevy of gifted young Irish singers and instrumentalists, the elaborate stage show has become inescapable, particularly on PBS stations, which seem to feel that pledge-week broadcasts are the key to viewers' checkbooks. Between the self-named 2005 debut CD and last year's. A Christmas Celebration, Celtic Woman has dominated the top spot on the Billboard World Music chart for more than two years.

With the release of A New Journey(Manhattan Records), the Celtic Woman women are set to reconquer America with another lavish production. The show comes to Copley Symphony Hall tonight at the start of a five-month North American tour.

I think the show reflects that Ireland today is a very different country, even going back 10 years, said Órla Fallon, a gifted harpist and singer fluent in Gaelic. It's a very confident, vibrant country, and we're very proud of our achievements. We've come a long way from being one of the poorest countries in the world. We're absolutely flying now in every way.


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One could interpret Celtic Woman as a sign of confidence, but the show's hard-sell ethos also speaks to a more-is-more sensibility with little faith in an audience's attention span. Musical director David Downes' arrangements tend toward the operatic. In addition to Fallon, the production features the dazzling All-Ireland fiddle champion Máiréad Nesbitt and vocalists Chloë Agnew, Lisa Kelly, Méav Ní Mhaolchatha and Hayley Westenra Ra backed by a six-piece band and a choir of eight.

With its sumptuous costumes and Broadway lighting, the show couldn't be more different than the cozy settings in which traditional Irish music has long thrived. Fallon, for instance, was weaned on songs and stories in her grandmother's house in County Kerry.

I grew up as a traditional singer, and I was deeply immersed in music from the time I was a child, Fallon said. When I started with Celtic Woman, it was all new to me. I had never done choreography or been part of a big production. I had sung with orchestras and bands, but nothing of this caliber. I think all the girls would say they've learned so much.

What's odd is that Celtic music's various strains are reaching an international audience like never before. The Celtic Woman musicians could enchant audiences with unfussy arrangements of traditional tunes and their original compositions, rather than putting an Irish spin on Over the Rainbow and the Bobby Darin vehicle Beyond the Sea. At a time when a well-heeled Ireland is exporting its wealth of musical talent out of pride rather than economic necessity, Celtic Woman doesn't feel like progress, though Fallon and the show's many fans would beg to differ.

I think it's important to experiment and try new things, because music is very much a living thing, she said. You can't keep it in a box. We're trying loads of things and getting a very positive reaction from audiences, and the music seems to have touched people's hearts.

Found on Órlagh Fallon.net from woody
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