March is a month when some people celebrate Irish culture through music and dance. Arts reporter Cheri Lawson talked with musicians and dancers who share Irish culture through the arts.
Percussion instructor and co-director of the Kentucky Irish Music Academy, Jeremy Wade, plays a traditional Irish drum known as the bodhran.
He captures the sound as he plays from his home studio in Lexington. Wade uses a single hand and a small stick or tipper to play the wooden frame drum.
“A lot of them look like oversized tambourines, and some of the early bodhrans would have even had jingles around them like a tambourine would. The one that I play most often is about six inches in width, and the diameter is about fourteen inches or so. There’s an animal skin stretched across that. The one that I play most often has a kangaroo skin. Most commonly, it would have been a goat skin,” said Wade.
Introducing Irish traditional music in the classroom and to the community is a passion of Wade's. The award-winning performer teaches bodhran classes at locations such as schools and festivals. He performs everywhere from concert halls to coffee shops. The 36-year-old says he’s drawn to the melodic sound of the drum. He recalls some of the instrument’s history.
“There are versions of it that go back, I think, even to the 1800s. And it has a very strong connection historically with the celebration of St. Stephen’s Day, where it wasn’t necessarily used as a musical instrument but more as a way to keep the beat as people would parade down the streets. In the late 1950s, early 1960s, it started getting introduced onto the concert hall stage,” said Wade.
Wade and fiddle player Justin Bridgebeck enjoy introducing audiences to Irish music. Wade says the Irish music scene in the Bluegrass has been through a few different phases, but he said it’s evolving and currently has a significant following.
“And now we have a full-on Irish music session that meets a couple of times a month at Kentucky Native Café,” explained Wade.
Some people have always believed the bodhran is the heartbeat of Irish music. Wade called that a fairly new title for the drum.
“It has become the heartbeat of Irish music, but maybe not always that way compared to Irish dance. There’s a much longer tradition, even of dance of percussive dance, than even bodhran when it comes to playing rhythm in Irish Music," said Wade.
Recording Irish dance steps in her kitchen, Allison Duvall said hearing Irish music inspires her to choreograph dances. She’s the owner and director of The McTeggart Irish Dancers’ location in Kentucky. Duvall has been dancing since age ten and teaching Irish dance since she was 15. She says being immersed in Irish culture and teaching Irish dance is special to her.
“It’s such a meaningful, almost spiritually grounded thing for me to be involved in Irish music and dance. Both as someone who’s descended from Irish immigrants, but also in my daily work, I work to welcome immigrants to the United States. Those are two of the reasons why I cherish so much the opportunity to continue practicing these beautiful cultural art forms,” explained Duvall.
Singer-songwriter Tommy Sands spoke to me from his home in County Down, in Ireland. He has performed in Appalachia and plans a return trip to this region. Sands talks about the influence of Irish music in Appalachia.
“The folk music that you play there is very similar in many ways to Irish music. It dips into the same well. Albeit with a slightly different bucket,” said Sands.
The singer and activist recalls how growing up in Ireland, he witnessed how music influenced people.
“My earliest memory is watching toes tapping to the same rhythm regardless of the political persuasion or religious affiliation. And I saw that somehow the music was connecting people. I found music was something that could unite the secret and sacred things inside people without their understanding of it completely,” said Sands.
Sands, Wade, and Duvall plan to continue embracing and sharing the music and dances of Ireland.
