Next week brings a musical event that is special on a lot of levels– great artists working together and performing, concerts you don’t want to miss, and an example of an arts organization really fostering the tradition and art that it presents.

The Irish Arts Center’s program “Masters in Collaboration” brings together two masters at what they do, in residence, collaborating for a week.  There are no strings, no promises the artists have to make to write or do anything new, no encumbrances.  This organization, on west 51st between 10th and 11th, is one of my favorites– they produce excellent theatre, have terrific music classes, and overall are one of the real treasures of New York organizations, with the open-minded and forward-looking guidance of Executive Director Aidan Connolly.   Irvine and Doyle will perform together– three full concerts, 9/11, 9/12, and 9/13, with an interview on Wednesday, 9/9, midway through their process.  The interview will be moderated by Mick Moloney, who came up with the idea for Masters in Collaboration, which debuted last year with songwriters Paul Brady and Sarah Suskind.  That program was meant to be a one-off but it did so well that it’s evolved into an ongoing series.  Rumor has it that we might hear some Moloney songs at some of the concerts, too.  Mick Moloney, one of New York’s treasures, a folklorist, singer and prof at NYU (who spends a great deal of time in Thailand these days working on humanitarian projects, and whose own CD “If It Weren’t for the Irish and the Jews” launches this month, to be performed by Mick at Symphony Space in October).

Theatre companies and writers have had residencies for years, many with no strings (see the article I wrote on playwright residencies for the New York Times here) but it’s rare in roots and Celtic music to give artists time to work together with that work together being the point– not the byproduct.

This year’s collaboration brings together two Irish singer-songwriters and guitar players so good they literally raise goosebumps.  Even if you don’t think you like Irish music, I dare you not to like Andy Irvine or John Doyle.  If you like acoustic songs and guitar at all, you will like this.  And of course, if you already like Irish music, you will adore this.  It is the type of event that back when I lived in Alabama I would make heroic efforts to see.  I d flew to New York to see Johnny and Phil Cunningham play together at Symphony Space (I had the tickets before I had the job in Alabama, and I was going with a group of Rovers, who are diehard Silly Wizard fan; you can join the Rover discussion group here).  It’s just unmissable.

More on the artists:

Andy Irvine (Shigeru Suzuki)

I’m way, way too excited about the visit of ANDY IRVINE .  I haven’t seen him play since 2004, when he played at the late-great club Satalla with his band Mozaik, a band that mixes Irish, Eastern European and old-timey sounds.  I reviewed it for Jigtime.com, and you can read that review here (check out Jigtime in future for podcasts and Celtic blogs from me in addition to the New York stories I post here).  Irvine was one of the founding members of Planxty, and Planxty were one of the first Irish bands I ever heard.  My brother Stephen brought his records home from Cornell when he graduated, including his Scottish and Irish records (he also brought them home from the Philadelphia Folk Festival when he went to Penn law school; different versions of this story exist).  One of them was Planxty’s “After the Break.”  It’s still one of my all-time favorites, with its mixture of upbeat melodies and yearning lyrics.  Irvine’s earlier band was Sweeny’s Men, and he has also played with Patrick Street, and Paul Brady.  Irvine was one of the people who helped introduce the bouzouki to Irish music in the 70s, and his influence as a singer-songwriter is profound.  His playing is intricate and delicate, and his singing gentle and nuanced, without ever being fey– his voice manages to be both light and deep. I love his interpretation of traditional songs– “Roger O’Hehir,” a song about a rascally highwayman who seems sort of lovable as sung by Irvine, is irresistible (it’s on the Planxty album “The Woman I Loved So Well”)– and his original songs as well.  His 1991 CD “Rude Awakening” got me through my first semester of grad school– it’s a CD whose songs are portraits, mostly of heroes, with one or two anti-heroes.  ”The Whole Damn Thing,” about a difficult, drunk, defiant Sinclair Lewis, particularly helped:

But maybe he said, “hey call me Red,

Cause no one can tell what Fortune brings

Fame in all its glory may be waiting in the wings

And you’ll never know the feeling if you never have the fling

And one moment of success is worth the whole damn thing.”

That really made me feel better about not understanding semiotics.

Come to think of it, “Never Tire of the Road,” a song Irvine wrote about Woody Guthrie, helped me through the dissertation phase– Irvine has recorded it three times, on “Rude Awakening,” “Rain on the Roof” and Mozaik’s “Live from the Powerhouse.”  The most version is by far the best, I’d say, with the old-timey instrumental “Pony Boy” before it and the inclusion of the refrain “all of you fascists bound to lose, you’re bound to lose, you fascists bound to lose.”  The energy of the instrumentals underneath the defiant lyrics, sung with Irvine’s mixture of passion and quiet, is really stirring.   Irvine is working on a new CD already, and we’re sure to hear some of the songs that will be on it.

John Doyle

JOHN DOYLE is far too busy– so in demand is he as a guitar player (he’s probably the best in Irish music going, period) that the opportunity to hear his own songs is limited, though he’s released two very highly thought of solo CDs, in addition to the CDs he’s made with champion fiddler Liz Carroll (”Double Play” was one of my picks for top Irish CDs of the year for Time Out’s the Volume; read it here).  Carroll and Doyle played for Obama at the White House this St. Patrick’s Day, too.

I first encountered Doyle at the Swannanoa Gathering in the summer of 2003.  This music camp held at Swannanoa College in Ashville, North Carolina, has different music intensive weeks, and Doyle taught at Celtic week.  I was learning harp at the time.  Sadly, the harp is in the case.  For years– I’m focusing on fiddle now, but maybe I’ll take out the harp this year.  There were CD tables set out where you could buy the CDs of the starry teacher roster (I wanted to write “counselors,” it feels sort of like camp, but with whiskey) and John Doyle’s guitar was featured on so many of them, with stickers that said “featuring John Doyle,” that people began peeling them off and wearing them. He works as a producer, so between that and his rhythmic, instantly recognizable guitar he appears on an awful lot of Irish musicians’ CDs.  For the past year he’s been touring with Joan Baez, acting as her musical director.  Doyle is a founding member of Solas.  His original instrumentals fit seamlessly into traditional tunes, and his guitar jig (I think it’s a jig) “the glad eye” has already been covered by the hot young group Guidewires.

Like Irvine, Doyle’s voice has a natural gentleness to it– where Irvine has a twinkly sense of humor, Doyle’s has a current of melancholy aching throughout. The blend of their voices together promises to be very special. I love Doyle’s version of the sad American song “Pretty Saro,” on his CD “Evening Comes Early,” and the fast, upbeat yet morbid ghost song “Captain Glenn,” on the CD “Wayward Son.”   Both of those are traditional, arranged by Doyle, but I’m looking forward to hearing some of the original songs he has not yet recorded.  There is one I particularly love, whose name I don’t know, with roses in it, that I’d love to hear again.

Tickets for this event are available at the Irish Arts Center and at www.smarttix.com, or 212-868-4444.  Irish Arts Center is at 533 West 51st street, between 10th and 11th Avenues.

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Gwen Orel writes about all kinds of culture for all kinds of press, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Time Out New York, the New York Press, Back Stage, American Theatre, the Village Voice, the L Magazine, the Forward, Tablet and others.  Celtic Music owns her.

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