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Arts and Entertainment

New CDs- The Magic of Music Delights 32 Girls in Kenya

By , special to the BIR, May 6, 2011

‘Lullabies of Love’ CD, a Collaboration of Artists Who Care, Will Support ‘One Home Many Hopes’
BY SEAN SMITH
SPECIAL TO THE BIR
The biggest ideas often have the simplest beginnings. For Newton resident Lindsay O’Donovan, the inspiration for a major combination music project and fundraising initiative came from the act of quietly humming a tune for a sleepy little girl named Lovie who lay cradled in her arms. Read more

A ‘Beanpot’ for Irish Dance? Please Stay Tuned

By Sean Smith, special to the BIR, May 6, 2011

BY SEAN SMITH
SPECIAL TO THE BIR
Is it too soon to call it “The Greenpot”?
Irish dance – rather than hockey – was the focus of a recent local showcase for several dozen students representing Boston area colleges. The event, titled “We Got the Beat,” took place April 2 at Harvard University, featuring Irish dance teams from Harvard, Boston College, Boston University, and Tufts University (a troupe from Massachusetts Institute for Technology also had been scheduled to participate but was unable to appear). Read more

Echoing Across Millennia, Irish Harp Shapes a Land

By , special to the BIR, April 2, 2011

By Sean Smith
Special to the BIR
It’s arguably the most iconic of Irish musical instruments, depicted in both classical and commercial art – and, yes, it’s even the namesake for a popular beer. So, with another year of St. Patrick’s Day events in Boston and elsewhere having brought a focus to traditional Irish music, the Irish harp has once again enjoyed its fair share of attention. Read more

BCMFest- Two Local Bands Featured in April 11 Concert

By , special to the BIR, April 2, 2011

A column of news and updates of the Boston Celtic Music Fest (BCMFest), which celebrates the Boston area’s rich heritage of Irish, Scottish, Cape Breton music and dance with a grassroots, musician-run winter music festival and other events during the year. – Sean Smith
Music not just for dancing – The contra dance tradition is as venerable a New England institution as fall foliage, snowy winters and Red Sox pennant fever. The tradition, with connections to Irish, Scottish, and other Celtic music, not only survives but thrives, thanks to many creative and energetic young musicians — including a number in the Greater Boston area. Read more

‘THE NEWS GREW SO BAD YOU COULD LAUGH FOR CRYING’

By , special to the BIR, April 2, 2011

In Ireland Unhinged, the Author Searches for Ireland’s Heart and Soul in the Shadow of the ‘Celtic Tiger’
By Peter F. Stevens
BIR Staff
In 2000, the author David Monagan did something many Irish Americans dream of, but never get around to doing for countless reasons personal and professional. He and his family sold their home in Connecticut and moved the proverbial “lock, stock, and barrel” to Cork where he embarked upon a self-avowed search for “Ireland’s soul,” the Ireland he remembered and cherished from a year spent in Dublin in the early 1970s. Read more

DEEP IN THE HEART OF DERRY: The Boys of St. Columb’s

By , special to the BIR, March 1, 2011

By Thomas O’Grady
Special to the BIR
“The schoolmen were schoolboys first.” So James Joyce has Stephen Dedalus muse in the “Scylla and Charybdis” episode of Ulysses. These words would have made an apt epigraph for The Boys of St. Columb’s (The Liffey Press, 2010), Maurice Fitzpatrick’s book of commentary and interviews published as a companion piece to the film of the same name that he co-wrote and co-produced: both book and film focus on one of the most momentous events in the history of modern Northern Ireland. Read more

New Film Gets to the Heart of Childsplay

By Sean Smith, special to the BIR, March 1, 2011

By Sean Smith
Special to the BIR
What can you say about a film in which Liz Carroll -- one of the most influential Irish fiddlers of our time -- appears as an interviewer, rather than a performer?
That’s one of the many charms of “Fiddles, Fiddlers and a Fiddlemaker: Childsplay,” a new documentary about the fiddle ensemble Childsplay and its artistic director and guiding spirit, Cambridge violin-maker Bob Childs. Read more

Enter, Singers, Dancers and Heavenly Harpists

By R, special to the BIR, March 1, 2011

By R. J. Donovan
Special to The BIR
Take an international step-dancing champion, add a dazzling fiddler from Galway, 19 heavenly harpists, one Broadway star, comedy galore and a 30-member choir and you’ve got “A Little Bit Of Ireland,” the St. Patrick’s Day musical revue presented by Reagle Music Theatre March 11-13. Read more

Black 47’s Kirwan talks music, strife, and civility

By , special to the BIR, March 1, 2011

By Sean Smith
Special to the BIR
Second of two parts
Wexford native Larry Kirwan — co-founder and guiding spirit of seminal Irish rock band Black 47, playwright, memoirist, novelist, columnist, radio show producer and host — has been one of the most visible and active figures on the Irish music scene for the past two decades, especially in New York (The Daily News once placed him ahead of Madonna in its list of the 50 most interesting New Yorkers). Read more

Singers, Dancers, Harpists Aplenty Conjure Up ‘A Little Bit Of Ireland’ at Reagle Music Theatre

By R. J. Donovan, special to the BIR, March 1, 2011

By R. J. Donovan
Special to The BIR
Take an international step-dancing champion, add a dazzling fiddler from Galway, 19 heavenly harpists, one Broadway star, comedy galore and a 30-member choir and you’ve got “A Little Bit Of Ireland,” the St. Patrick’s Day musical revue presented by Reagle Music Theatre March 11-13. Read more