School Matinee Performance Tuesday, March 6, 2012 $5 per person (Performance Duration: 55 minutes) Recommended for students in grades 6-12 ALBERTA BAIR THEATER 2801 Third Avenue N PO Box 1556 Billings, MT 59103 Ticket Office: (406)256-6052 Executive Office: (406)256-8915 Department of Education Lisa DuBeau School Show Coordinator Dr. William Mouat Program Director www.albertabairtheater.org Solas: Celtic Music and Traditions The first truly great Irish band to emerge from America" That praise for Solas comes from the Boston Herald, and similar words have been written in many Irish/American and major city newspapers since the band was started by Seamus Egan in 1996. The Austin American-Statesman, for example called Solas "the standard by which contemporary Celtic groups are judged."
Since its birth in 1996, Solas has been loudly proclaimed as the most popular, influential, and exciting Celtic band to ever emerge from the United States. Even before the release of its first Shanachie CD, the Boston Herald trumpeted the quartet as "the first truly great Irish band to arise from America and the Irish Echo ranked Solas among the "most exciting bands anywhere in the world." Since then, the praise has only grown louder. The Philadelphia Inquirer said they make "mindblowing Irish folk music, maybe the world's best". The New York Times praised their "unbridled vitality", the Washington Post dubbed them one of the "world's finest Celtic-folk ensembles" and the Austin American-Statesman called them "the standard by which contemporary Celtic groups are judged." Solas is virtually unique in the new territory it has opened up for Celtic music. It has performed at all the major Celtic and folk festivals, including Philadelphia, Edmonton, the legendary National Folk Festival, and Milwaukee's Irish fest; but also at Telluride Bluegrass Festival, and the chamber music summer series at Steamboat Springs, Colorado. It has performed at Symphony Hall, Wolf Trap, the Ford Amphitheater, and Queens Hall in Edinburgh, Scotland. In New York City, where the band was based in its early years, it has played at the legendary Bottom Line folk club, but also at vaunted classical venues Town Hall and Symphony Space. The Solas sound today is anchored by founders Seamus Egan, who plays flute, tenor banjo, mandolin, whistle, guitar and bodhran, and fiddler Winifred Horan. They are two of the most respectedand imitatedmusicians anywhere in acoustic music. Mick McAuley from Kilkenny plays accordion and concertina; Eamon McElholm from Tyrone plays guitar and keyboards. Deirdre Scanlan is the band's latest vocal discovery, gorgeously filling the role carved out by founding vocalist Karan Casey.
Teacher Review Reflecting with Your Students After the Show It is often after the show that the real learning begins. You and your class have shared an experience and it s in reflecting on the experience together that you will learn the different kinds of responses the show elicited. Sharing these responses gives students opportunities to learn about things that they didn t see or hear. It helps them broaden their perceptions and hone their evaluative skills, cementing what they themselves think. Name of performance attended: School name: Teacher: Grade level: How helpful was the study guide in preparing your students for the performance? Very Some Not at all How helpful was the study guide in giving you classroom activities you could use? Very Some Not at all Any other comments about the study guide? Please let us know what the impact of the performance was on your students: In what ways did the performance connect to the classroom? Were you satisfied with your overall experience at the Alberta Bair Theater? Very satisfied Somewhat satisfied Not satisfied Indifferent What improvements could be made? Please mail: Alberta Bair Theater, Education Dept., P.O. Box 1556, Billings, MT 59103 or FAX: (406) 256-5060
CONCERT REVIEW Irish band Solas transcends folk roots by Seth Rogovoy (WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., March 9, 1997) -- The Irish-American quintet Solas brought its highly stylized repertoire of Celtic folk melodies to the Clark Art Institute on Friday night, in the second standing-room-only concert of the museum's "Four Fridays of Folk" series. There was nothing "folkie" about the music Solas played at the Clark. Combining virtuosity and elan, the musicians took the raw material of traditional folk songs and dances and transformed them into art pieces that were jazzy and sophisticated while ultimately retaining the accessibility inherent in their origins. The musicians -- all apparently 20-somethings who in their dress (flannel and Dr. Martens boots) and shoegazing manner resembled a collegiate-rock band -- are all well-established stars in their field as solo performers or as members of such groundbreaking groups as Chanting House, Cherish the Ladies, the Sharon Shannon Band and Green Fields of America. Together, they seem to have found their kindred spirits, both in their reverence for the traditional sources of their material and in the exuberance they bring to it. Their performance revealed as much about the influence of traditional Celtic music on contemporary pop as it did about the players bringing a rock or jazz sensibility to their performance. In the course of two sets, the group alternated instrumental numbers -- reels, jigs and airs -- with songs featuring vocalist Karan Casey, who sang both in Gaelic and English. "Nil Na La" introduced her sparkling soprano, which glistened in the upper registers and grew warm and vibrant down below. "The Boatman" was a plaintive ballad on which Casey was delicate and airy, while "The Fair-Haired Boy," a "revolutionary rebel song" she sang unaccompanied, was appropriately rousing and rebellious. The group's instrumental tunes were equally as evocative. One described as a "barn dance" began with John Williams on concertina -- a tiny button accordion with an enormous sound -- playing a figure that could have been the herald of the dawn or the summons to the dance. In either case, it prefigured what was to come. Seamus Egan, the band's nominal leader and multi-instrumentalist who stuck mostly to flutes and tin whistles during the evening, joined Williams, and his flute danced around the concertina figure with a lively melody as well as occasional syncopated fills. By the time fiddler Winifred Horan and guitarist John Doyle joined in, the piece had been transformed into a rollicking bit of trad-irish funk. With each player a virtuoso in his own right, there was no real standout among them. Guitarist Doyle was probably the group's secret weapon, so subtle yet essential was the rhythmic and textural foundation he laid down with his playing, which in addition to chords featured booming bass lines worthy of an entirely separate musician. So too did Egan at times seemingly double himself on flute, playing melody lines while inserting accents and trills above and below the melody, as if James Galway was hiding behind him and duetting with him. In the second half of the show, the spotlight focused more on fiddler Winifred Horan, who was equally at ease with athletic sawing as she was with delicate melody lines. Vocalist Casey may well have been the crowd's favorite, not only on the merit of her strikingly gorgeous vocals but perhaps also due to the convincing display of vulnerability contained both in her songs and her stage presence. But more than any individual showcasing -- and if this was Seamus Egan's band, you couldn't tell -- Solas was most effective as an artful ensemble, with players weaving in and out of each other, trading licks and solos much like a jazz group, building dynamics like a rock band, and combining melodic and textural forces like a chamber group to create a symphonic effect that bespoke the organic quality of the instrumentation. While the players, particularly Casey, did offer an occasional wry comment or note of introduction to a tune, the musicians did not go to great lengths to establish a personal rapport with the audience. They let their music speak for them. And judging from the crowd's overwhelming reception, they succeeded.
Student Review Form Student Name School Grade Name of Performance What type of art form did you see onstage? (Theater? Dance? Music? Was there a combination of forms?) What did you like or dislike about the performance? How did it make you feel? (Energized? Inspired?) What did you learn from the performance? (Did it spark any new ideas?) Was there a section of the performance that you particularly liked or disliked? If so, why? What 4 adjectives would you use to describe the performance or the performers? Please mail or deliver to: Alberta Bair Theater, Education Dept., 2722 3 rd Ave N #200, Billings, MT 59101