Volume 8, Issue 4

Innovation in traditional Irish music
Dan Biemborn

In general, "traditional" music in Ireland is defined as music that comes from a certain region of Ireland and is passed down through the generations from teacher to student (sometimes father or mother to son or daughter) in a continuous line that stretches back into the past. One hundred years ago or more, this was certainly the only way that dance music could be learned. A person's exposure to the music would come entirely from hearing live acoustic performances from local or traveling musicians. Recordings of the music were not available to large numbers of people until many years later, and sheet music was rare, and considerably more expensive to the average person than it is today. The pace of change and innovation was also slower than it is today, due largely to the singular method of transition. Style and techniques (even for individual tunes) would survive the transmission process mostly unchanged, resulting in styles that were linked to a family or a small region of Ireland.

The major difference between modern times and this hazily defined traditional period is the accessibility we all have to recordings, radio broadcasts, sheet music books, music festivals, and live performances in distant areas that we can drive to listen to. The individual style of a musician is much more likely to be based on combinations of several sources than ever before - a fiddler might start playing from listening to Kevin Burke recordings and learning to use some of Kevin's techniques, followed by a few years of instruction from James Kelly, and later several years of touring with the Pogues. The result is that an individual player may choose from several sources what they like to do, resulting in a unique combination of influences on their playing.

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Volume 8, Issue 4

Anthony Kearns: The man behind the voice

For more information, visit www.anthonykearns.tripod.com

Anthony Kearns is a born entertainer. He may have snagged the title, "Ireland's Best Living Tenor", but he'll jokingly tell you that he's also got the gift of the gab, "I could rabbit on for hours. I didn't just kiss the Blarney stone, I swallowed it." His banter is casual and despite his success, he is not ready to sit back. "If the audience wants me, I'll keep coming back."

Along with his fellow members of the Irish Tenors, Anthony first broke onto the American stage when PBS aired a concert from Dublin in 1998. Up until then, the Mediterranean giants Pavorotti, Domingo and Carreras had ruled the world of tenors, but "the darlings of PBS" were fast winning over their audiences. Anthony and "the boys" took songs like "The Wild Irish Rose" out of the pub and gave them a bigger sound -- the backing of a 60-piece orchestra. A mixture of toe-tapping songs and flawless arias gave concert performances a new energy, and before long they were appearing on shows such as "Live with Regis and Kelly" and "The Today Show". This exposure gave Anthony the platform to challenge his vocal range and to branch out as a solo artist. He loves nothing better than trying out new pieces on his fans. "The audience is like a bull," he laughs, "you've got to wrestle with them."

Hands down, Anthony is first to admit that he loves being the center of attention. At an early age, he had the natural lilt of sean nos songs and would belt out music on his mother's button accordion in the family kitchen. "Sean nos songs are ornament to yourself. They are not strict, they have no rules." At every given opportunity, young Anthony would jump at the chance to perform and never shed away from leading his classmates in song, "I suppose my lungs were in training from an early age when I headed my class and blew into the melodica."

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