| (09:59 31/08/02) Hacohen Ayelet ARTICLE FROM THE NY TIMES |
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About the Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann in Listowel.
Music Rivalry and Revelry Both Serving Irish Culture
August 28, 2002
By BRIAN LAVERY
LISTOWEL, Ireland, Aug. 26 - Decades before traditional
Irish music became a record-industry staple and reached
international audiences, this country's musicians earned
their stripes in rigorous recital competitions.
Championships begin in the 32 Irish counties in the spring
and are followed by contests in the four Irish provinces.
In August a weekend of spirited competition and celebration
takes over a small rural town, usually changing every two
years. Known by its Irish name, Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann,
the event is a euphoric toast to the healthy state of Irish
music and, more important, an excuse for an astonishing
party.
On paper, Fleadh Cheoil (pronounced flah KEE-ohl), which
means music festival, brings together 4,000 competitors in
four age groups and playing in 40 categories. Over the
weekend, this picturesque town of 3,700 in County Kerry, at
Ireland's southwest corner, was host to its 14th Fleadh.
Scores of nervous musicians, mostly teenagers, played
before panels of stern-faced judges in an echoing
warehouse, an unused movie theater, the courthouse and
other places.
Categories range from old favorites, like the fiddle and
flute, to the obscure. At the competition for lilting, a
technique of singing nonsense syllables, similar to jazz
scatting, a line of spectators stretched out the door. And
plain old whistling sounded surprisingly graceful when
applied to jigs and reels.
The sound of the weekend, however, had to be the uilleann
pipes (pronounced ILL-inn), a cousin of the bagpipes, which
mix a light, reedy pitch for rollicking melodies with a
bass drone for harmony.
It was sometimes easy for the competitions to be
overlooked. The exuberant traditional culture sprawled out
in every direction and attracted 220,000 people. Every
hotel and bed-and-breakfast was full more than a week in
advance; latecomers were advised to bring a tent and a
sleeping bag.
The town square, with colorful storefronts and two elegant
stone church steeples, bustled for days. Clusters of
musicians played impromptu sessions everywhere, and stalls
sold compact discs, accordions, fiddles, garden gnomes,
kitsch felt hats and, incongruously, household utensils
like a "miracle" potato peeler. Police kept all traffic
out, leaving the streets open for people to wander in the
unexpected sunshine and incessant music.
When the competitors finished their day's work - and many
compete in more than one discipline - they took to the
streets and the pubs. And while 4,000 musicians take part
in the recitals, 6,000 more arrive for no reason other than
to play in spontaneous sessions. As a result Listowel's 35
bars - nearly one for every 100 residents - were bursting.
The standard of music is high, even if the musical
matchmaking sometimes goes awry. In the New Kingdom Bar on
Sunday night, four accordion players found themselves
crowded together with one bodhrn player. The bodhrn
(pronounced BOW-rawn, as in "taking a bow") is a one-sided
goat-skin drum beaten with a small two-headed mallet in a
flicking motion from the wrist. The bar's patrons didn't
seem to mind that imbalance, and neither did the accordion
players, turning out a flurry of jigs and reels.
A mustachioed member of the bar staff took a break from
serving drinks to enter the musicians' circle and sing
three ballads. As he crouched on one knee, eyes closed and
the veins on his neck bulging, people shushed their
neighbors and the bar fell into a respectful silence.
At times the dignity of the competitions was threatened by
the pace and inebriation of the festivities, and families
watching the last set-dancing performances in the square
occasionally had to negotiate through crowds spilling out
of the pubs.
But that contrast is essential to the nature of the Fleadh,
said Labhras O Murchu (pronounced LAW-rus OH MOOR-who),
chairman of Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann (pronounced
COAL-tuhs kyohl-TOR-ee AIR-in), the governing body for
traditional Irish music. The conviviality and accessibility
of the Fleadh, while unintentional, ensured that the event
and the musical tradition behind it would not be seen as
elitist. "They find their own level, and they respect each
other," he said of the revelers and the competitors. "It's
an organic thing, really. If we had tried to influence the
views of young people on how to enjoy themselves, we would
have lost our way."
Fleadh Cheoil dates to 1951, when musicians founded
Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann, which now has 30,000 members
in 400 branches worldwide. In addition to maintaining high
musical standards through the competition, the Fleadh is an
essential gathering point. Irish music evolved several
regional stýles before mass communication and
transportation, said Brian Prior, Comhaltas's head
organizer for the Fleadh.
The Clare and West Clare stýles, which focus on the jig and
reel, are best known because of the popular success of
local fiddle players like Martin Hayes. But especially at a
Fleadh in County Kerry, the Clare stýle faces its southern
rival, the Sliabh Luachra (pronounced sleeve LUA-kra)
stýle, a reference to the poor quality of the land in
Kerry, Cork and Limerick. Its adherents play more polkas
and slides: songs in a different time signature and having
a more lively feel. Because of their proximity to Scotland,
musicians in northwestern Donegal evolved the Highland
stýle, which is "fast and furious, Mr. Prior said. "An East
Clare man wouldn't like it."
And the Fleadh brings together more than just different
stýles of music. On Saturday afternoon an Englishman and a
man with a heavy sing-song Kerry accent leaned against a
car and argued about violin fingerings. Every type of Irish
accent could be heard: north Dublin, south Dublin, Cork,
Kerry, Donegal, as well as Belfast and other parts of
Northern Ireland. "The music belongs to all political
traditions on this island," said Mr. Murch, who is also a
senator in the Irish Parliament. That point could be made
quite clear next year, since Comhaltas is considering a
location in Northern Ireland for the Fleadh.
Emigrant traditions made a strong showing, with as many as
half the competitors in some disciplines coming from the
United States or England. Stephen Prosol, a 21-year-old
accordion player, came from Cambridge, England, for his
third Fleadh, but blamed a case of nerves for stopping him
from placing in the competition. His mother, who is also
his teacher, emigrated from Ireland; she called out
encouragingly, "We thought you would bring home that cup
this year."
Mr. Prosol said the trip to Listowel was his fifth to
Ireland this year and that he had made many friends in both
Ireland and England through his music.
That strong connection with second- and third-generation
Irish emigrants is apt, Mr. Murch said, because Irish
emigrants helped preserve traditional music in the late
19th and early 20th centuries, when musicians here were
unappreciated and had few outlets to perform. Emigrants in
the United States were the first to put ancient songs onto
78-r.p.m. records, which came to Ireland and reintroduced a
new generation to songs that had been forgotten.
The health of Irish music is perhaps best exemplified by
Isaac Alderson, a Chicago native with no Irish roots. He
started playing the uilleann pipes at 13, drawn in by his
local Irish scene and the "very flowing, very natural" feel
of the music, he said. Traditional Irish music is unlike
other classical and folk forms, Mr. Alderson said, because
it allows musicians to develop and express a personal stýle
in a unique way.
"There's nothing like the rhythm and the way the music
flows," he said. "In Irish music, you create complexity out
of a very simple melody."
Now 19 and a sophomore at Sarah Lawrence College, Mr.
Alderson was the only one to win three competitions this
year, in uilleann pipes, concert flute and tin whistle. As
he walked back to his tent at the Fleadh campsite,
passers-by who saw his three silver trophies stopped and
stared and asked about his musical heroics.
The Fleadh helps sustain ancient traditions, musical and
verbal, since experienced musicians tend to introduce each
song with the history of its composition and its
significance, which usually means a folk tale or a brief
eulogy for a deceased virtuoso who passed the tune on.
Despite Comhaltas's desire to uphold Irish culture, Mr.
Murch said, musicians do gradually cause the tradition to
evolve. "It's not fair to ask them to play in the stýle of
80 years ago," he said. "That's not a living art form."
Just after winning the uilleann pipes competition for "slow
airs," a genre of ancient Irish song, Thomas Johnston said
he did not think of the Fleadh or his playing the pipes as
an effort to maintain Irish culture. Now 19, he started
playing the tin whistle at 7 and has been coming to Fleadhs
his entire life. "It's just my life; it's what I do," he
said. "It's just music, music, music."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/28/arts/music/28ARTS.html?ex=1031775604&ei=1&en=77dc7ab3abeafca4
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