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How I spent my summer vacation: A week at Catskills Irish Arts Week

By Randi Weiner

The Journal News

East Durham, N.Y. - The 20-somethings sitting near where my husband, Dave, and I were eating our midnight cheeseburger dinner were fairly typical: dark clothing, some small tattoos, longish hair, some facial jewelry and late-night bleary eyes.

Then one of the young men - his cheeks marked with red streaks from heat or exertion - pulled a tin whistle from his lap, put it to his mouth and began to play.

"I know that piece," I said as we walked out the canvas-tent front door of Furlong's Pub on the way to our car. "It's 'Drunken Landlady.'"

There are people who like to vacation on tropical islands and others who spend their free time hiking or skiing or bungee-jumping. Last month my husband and I spent a week at what I call music camp but what was officially the 14th annual Catskills Irish Arts Week hosted by the Michael J. Quill Irish Cultural and Sports Center in East Durham.

"The point is really to provide educational opportunities and a social and fun atmosphere for people who really love and respect Irish traditional music and dance," said Paul Keating, who has been artistic director of CIAW since 2003. "It's a real hard-core audience."

About 600 amateur musicians from 37 states signed up for classes taught by 75 of traditional Irish music's stars and superstars. Another 1,800 people spent at least part of the week going to the nightly sessions and concerts and hobnobbing with the legends.

Age was no barrier: Members of the all-girl group Girsa were 16, mostly. Mike Rafferty, Charlie and Tony Coen, Joe Madden, Scarsdale's Felix Dolan and Pat O'Dea, who have played together for decades, ranged in age from about 65 to 81.

"I look forward to it every year. It's always amazing. You actually go into a depression the week after," said Rose Flanagan of Pearl River, who has taught fiddle at CIAW for about six years. Flanagan helps organize the Pearl River Fleadh each year, in addition to teaching fiddle and mentoring Girsa. (A fleadh, pronounced "flaw," is a cross between competition and festival.)

"Seeing these great musicians and having the opportunity to meet and have sessions with musicians you've heard about all your life but never met before - it's just phenomenal," she said.

I signed up for a mandolin class taught by Frank McCormick. My husband signed up for two guitar classes, one with Pat Egan and one with Paul deGrae. Egan is part of the traditional Irish band Chulrua and plays in the Boston area. DeGrae was one of several musicians enticed from Ireland.

We have played traditional Irish music for more than five years with the Shamrogues, part of the Shamrock Traditional Irish Music Society. As a nonprofit, STIMS uses whatever money comes in through grants, gigs and donations to preserve and promote traditional Irish music and musicians.

The Society helped sponsor two projects during the week: a Billy McComisky CD, "Outside the Box" and a button accordion tutorial by Damien Connolly. Westchester attorney and Sligo fiddle champion Brian Conway's new CD was among other discs being launched here.

You'd think, after performing concerts and duets off and on for a half-decade, that I'd be over stage fright. My first class was a disaster, at least for my ego. McCormick, who lives in Nanuet and usually plays the tenor (four-string) banjo, asked each of the six people in the class to play something. Our abilities ranged from minimal to fairly proficient.

My hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold my pick. When I described the scene later for a couple of 'Rogues, it was met with sympathetic head shakes - and the advice that "you'll be the most improved player in the class by the end of the week, then!"

It's the mark of a good teacher, I think, when no one drops out of a class like this, where there are no grades and no tests and just advice and suggestions. Our class kept adding people. We were six the first day, seven the second and eight the third - most transfers from one of the bouzouki classes.

McCormick, who has been playing since he was 5, has taught at past CIAW gatherings.

"I enjoy teaching, just to help people through their difficulties ... just to give somebody a little bit of confidence," McCormick said. "Even if it's just enough to get them into their local area to play sessions.

"For me as a musician, I get to play with people I admire, with people you don't get to play with on a regular basis," he said. "And the fact that you can walk down the street and see some of Ireland's national treasures. It's a weird sort of feeling.

"You don't expect these people to be walking up (Route) 145. I grew up listening to De Danaan for years and to have Alec Finn and Johnny McDonagh sitting here - it means a lot. There's just no down side to it."

By the end of the week, my shakes were long gone and I'd gotten some excellent advice on better pick hand placement and how to put in some tremelos and an occasional G chord to add depth to my playing.

Dave was practicing chord shifts up and down his fingerboard and leaning hard on the 'black-and-decker' strum pattern of a reel, since guitar is strictly a rhythm instrument in traditional Irish music.

At our bed and breakfast about 10 miles out of town, we met graphic designer and amateur bass player Howard Beaver, who lives in South Salem and runs Vista Studios there. Beaver, 47, his wife, Liz and their children, 10-year-old Danielle and 8-year-old Sean, had been attending the nearby Grey Fox bluegrass festival. This year, the festival moved to the East Durham area from its longtime home in Ancramdale, N.Y.

"I (also) go to a music camp in Ohio once a year," Beaver said. "People don't get it until they're there. They think I'm going to a party camp or a rock camp where I pretend to be a musician for a day. But this is bone-deep. You get the true feeling, you get to work and really focus.

"They don't realize how cosmic the music really is. It's roots music, which feeds everything else."

Pamela Geraghty and Emily McShane, both 16, were attending CIAW as students and as performers. The girls from Pearl River were part of Girsa, the opening act at the Wednesday night concert.

"We've all been playing in the same music community since we were about 7 or 8 years old," Geraghty said, so playing in front of 1,000 or so people was "exhausting, but fun."

She had signed up for singing and accordion classes; McShane was taking a bodhran class. Pronounced bow-rawn, it's the traditional drum played with a double-headed stick or beater.

The two said meeting people who share a love of traditional music - and meeting for spontaneous sessions - was one of the attractions of being at CIAW.

Joe Madden, 70, of Yorktown, whose daughter, Yonkers resident Joanie Madden, is the driving force behind the band Cherish the Ladies, was an honored guest.

Sitting on stage with longtime friends Rafferty, Dolan, O'Dea and the Coen brothers, the elder Madden's fingers were nearly invisible on his accordion as he played the series of reels and jigs that made up the half-hour set.

I sometimes think real traditional Irish music is just that - watching a half-dozen old, old friends sitting around, playing the tunes they've played for generations, laughing and joking and ignoring everything but the music of the moment.

"It's a blast," a grinning Madden said as he left the stage. "We've been playing together for years. This is just great for the music - it furthers the tradition and keeps the faith, as we say."

Reach Randi Weiner at rcweiner@lohud.com or 845-578-2468.

The origins of a tradition

Nearly 20 years ago, people with an interest in Irish music, dance and culture created a one-day festival in Schoharie County, retiring at the end of the day to the traditional Irish pubs in East Durham to continue the craic, Keating said.

Craic, pronounced "crack," is the Irish word for good fellowship and fun.

The organizers thought a longer program offering classes for fans and students to sit down with professionals and learn their tips and tricks would generate a lot of interest.

Fourteen years ago, the first Catskills Irish Arts Week drew about 60 students and fewer than a dozen teachers meeting in one or two venues during the day and open sessions most nights led by staff members.

Three years later, they added nightly concerts featuring the teachers along with an end-of-the-week concert now named for legendary Irish fiddler Andy McGann.

For more information: Catskills Irish Arts Week: http://www.east-durham.org/irishartsweek/