FebruaryFebruary Irish Music & 2019 2019 Dance Association Feabhra The mission of the Irish Music and Dance Association is to support and promote Irish music, dance, and other cultural traditions to insure their continuation. St. Paul’s Own Authentic St. Patrick’s Day Celebration for the Whole Family! Saturday, March 16 It will be a great day of music, dance and culture – fun for the whole family. So come on down to the St. Paul before the St. Patrick’s Day Parade for the fun at Landmark Center and come on back after the parade! What’s new for the St. Patrick’s Day Irish Celebration 2019? A sumptuous selection of traditional Irish music and dance with new and favorite bands and dance groups plus theater: . New bands - Irish Pub Rock the SERFs and lush vocals with fiddle, whistle, guitar, mandolin, and percussion from the Inland Seas! . This year’s Cross-Cultural Presentation offers a delightful blend of Irish and Swedish music in “Tullamore Aquavit Dew” with Phil Platt and Eric Platt in the Seminar Room. The Children’s Stage will start earlier this year, with songs with Ross Sutter – for two performances, a parent and kid céilí dance party with the Mooncoin Céili Dancers, songs from Charlie Heymann, interactive storytelling with Sir Gustav Doc’Tain, plus music and dance with Danielle Enblom. Theater with “Sadie the Goat” a one-woman show, written in verse, that tells the purportedly true story of an Irish-American woman in “Gangs of New York”-era Manhattan. Look for more on this presentation elsewhere in this newsletter. And our favorite bands and dance groups: . The delightful blend of music and dance from SisterTree now including Danielle Enblom. Favorite musical friends on the Main Stage: Legacy, Barra, Tom Dahill and Ginny Johnson and Locklin Road. Plus the outstanding Advanced Youth Ensemble from the Center for Irish Music! . Don’t forget to make your way to the beautiful Weyerhaeuser stage - the perfect setting for the music of Clairseach, the Eddies, and Upset and Curl. (It might be the best kept secret of the celebration!) . Our friends The Langer’s Ball are back – look for them on the Weyerhaeuser stage. Favorite musicians in the Tea Room: the Bellows Brothers, Bundle and Go, Clairseach, Dunquin, the Eddies, as well as student ensembles from the Center for Irish Music. New to the Tea Room this year: Mary Vanorny and Ryan Johnson . Great Irish dance with Corda Mor, Eilís Academy at Escalate, Mactír Academy of Irish Dance, the Mulhern School, O’Shea Irish Dance, and Rince na Chroi, as well as Green Fire Irish Dancers, Knocknagow Irish Dancers and Mooncoin Céili Dancers. A seminar on “Irish for Tourists” with Gaeltacht Minnesota. Children’s crafts and face painting. www.IMDA-MN.org Irish Music & 2 Dance Association The IMDA Board is: IMDA’ s 16th Day of Irish Dance President: Julia Rogers Vice President: Jan Casey Sunday, March 17 Treasurer: Rob Thomas Secretary: Jean Bergstrom Board Members: John Concannon The spotlight focuses on Irish dance, with more that 600 Kevin Carroll dancers expected from 15 Irish dance groups. Kathie Luby Amber Ladany Maureen Engelhardt Aja Beers What new this year? Editor: Kathie Luby . Performances by three new Irish dance schools: the Assistant Editor Kevin Carroll IMDA Board Meetings are open to the membership. Hudson Irish Dance Academy from Wayzata, Moore The Board meets regularly on the second Tuesday of each month at 6:00 pm at the than Dance from Fridley, and Rince na Greine from Dubliner Pub, St. Paul. Members are encouraged to verify the time and location Hopkins. shortly before, as meeting times and locations can change. Irish dance meets clogging with the Cross-Cultural Contact Information performance by North Star Irish Dance and the Wild E-mail: [email protected] Rose Cloggers. Newsletter Submissions . Special programming for sensory sensitive audiences. We welcome our readers to submit articles of interest, news, and notices of events Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder can find an event to be published in the newsletter. The deadline is the 18th of the preceding month. like ours especially difficult. This year, in addition to Send to: [email protected] offering a quiet space as respite, special entertainment is planned for these kids, including music, dance and a chance to try playing traditional Irish musical instruments. We’re hoping to make families with kids on the autism spectrum feel comfortable. What else can you look forward to? . Dancer, musician, dance educator and historian Danielle Enblom will return as Mistress of Ceremonies. Danielle will present a series of dance demonstrations highlighting types and styles of dance for your between acts entertainment! . Returning favorite dance schools - Eilís Academy at Escalate, Green Fire Irish Dancers, Mactír Academy of Irish Dance, the Mulhern School, North Star Irish Dance, O’Shea Irish Dance, Rince na Chroi, Rince Nua, St. Paul Irish Dancers, and the Shamrock School of Irish Step Dance. IMDA’s Decade of Dance Award presentations . Our showcase of adult Irish dance students from Mactír Academy, North Star Irish Dance, O’Shea Irish Dance and Rince na Chroi. The Children’s Stage on Sunday as well as on St. Patrick’s Day will feature Danielle Enblom and Sir Gustav Doc’Tain as well as songs and games with Charlie Heymann. Sunday will also include two theatrical presentations. The Phoenix Theater will present “The Strange Genius of W.B. Yeats. The Celtic Collaborative will present the one-act play “Thirst.” Look for more on these performances in the March IMDA newsletter. And don’t miss the Tea Room for music on Day of Irish Dance with Center for Irish Music student ensembles, Beth Engelking, The Giggin’ Silés, Rupalai, Tipper Road, and returning young bands Dòrain and Sona. And a treat with a nice cup of tea! Look for more information on the artists in the March IMDA newsletter. Details on the schedule will be posted soon at www.IMDA-MN.org. IT WILL BE A GREAT WEEKEND! www.IMDA-MN.org Irish Music & 3 Dance Association Our Own “Irish Celebrities” Featured at Landmark Center IMDA has been recognizing the outstanding contributions of some very special members of our community through the IMDA Honors events since 2004. This year, IMDA is delighted to present four IMDA Hon- orees as part of our St. Patrick’s Day Irish Celebration. Tom Dahill, song man, fiddler and piper and teller of tales, has a great repertoire of old favorites. Tom has been delighting audiences since the days of the old MacCaf- ferty’s and the very first Irish Fair. Tom will be joined by Ginny Johnson on con- certina, tin whistle, bodhrán and guitar. Ann Heymann, world renowned master of the wire-strung Gaelic (Irish) harp, is largely responsible for the modern-day playing of this ancient instrument. She was the first to bring back the tradition of stringing her harp with precious metals to enhance the sound, and is regarded as a world treasure to proponents of the Gaelic harp around the world. Ann will be joined by her husband Charlie, a fine multi-instrumentalist and singer; they perform together as Clairseach. Ann and Charlie will perform in the lovely Weyerhaeuser Auditorium and in Tea Room. John McCormick, master of the accordion and musical director of the Brian Boru Irish Pipe Band is a mainstay local traditional music sessions and teaches at the Center for Irish Music. John will fit in a performance with Barra, as well as taking the stage with the Brian Borus. And on Sunday as part of IMDA’s Day of Irish Dance: Bill Conlan, of the infamous Gallivanters, singer, guitarist, beloved for his treas- ured “St. Patrick’s Day Nursing Home Tour,” and all-around lovely gentleman will be performing with the St. Paul Irish Dancers on Sunday in the Weyerhaeuser Auditorium. www.IMDA-MN.org Irish Music & 4 Dance Association IMDA NEW DESIGN GET IT FOR DAY OF DANCE (OR THE DAY BEFORE) (OR BOTH) www.IMDA-MN.org Irish Music & 5 Dance Association The Gaelic Corner By Will Kenny Let's all sing our ABC's, you Words beginning with X are remember, the way you learned already rare in English, so the Irish them when you were a kid: "A-B-C versions are usually very similar, -D-E-F-G, H-I-L-M-N-O ..." mainly X-gha ("x-ray" and related terms) and xiolafón ("xylophone"). Okay, I skipped a couple of As you can see from that last letters, but I was using word, the Irish version got rid of the Irish alphabet. Peruse an Irish dictionary and you'll the Y in that word, and you'll be hard pressed to find Y quickly find that entire sections for some letters are used in any Irish word listed in the dictionary. missing, compared to what you expect in an English dictionary, and others have but a few words in them. As for some of the other letters, they may be represented in more than one way. There are very few Z The basic Irish alphabet contains only eighteen -words, but we sometimes see the Z retained – zú for letters, missing J, K, Q, V, W, X, Y, and Z. (Those "zoo" -- or we might find it represented by another eighteen letters are, surprisingly, used to represent sound, such as the "sh" sound that starts the word more sounds in Irish than we have in English, but that's séabra (SHAY-bruh), for "zebra." a different topic.) That kind of variation happens with some English Things get interesting with loan words from English words beginning with a Y sound: Giúdais is used for (or from any language) that start with one of these "Yiddish" while Iúgslaiv was used for "Yugoslavia." letters.