The Piper's Hut Concert Series

2010

Tony DeMarco

www.tonydemarcomusic.net

Location

TBA

Tickets
$20	Adult
$10	Student/Senior

Tony DeMarco: Irish fiddler. If that sounds slightly off, you have only to listen to his music to be cured of any preconceptions about the importance of ethnic purity in traditional music. But the Big Apple really is a melting pot.

Tony was born on May 20, 1955, the second of three children raised in East Flatbush, NY. Hi family is filled with musical and sports talent. Tony definitely found his way to Irish traditional music via a different path than the one trod by musicians raised in Irish immigrant households.

More typical young Irish traditional musicians in New York in the 1970s had at least one parent born in Ireland. They may well have attended step dancing classes with one of the many dance schools in the region, and most likely went to group music classes conducted in the Bronx, Brooklyn, New Jersey, or Long Island. They would have joined a branch of the international Irish traditional music organization CCE and competed each year at the regional fleadh cheoil in the Bronx. If they placed high enough, they would go on to the big show, The All-Ireland Competition from which a few returned home with the coveted title of "All-Ireland Champion."

Tony had a different background altogether. As he puts it: "I never grew up with the competitive [CCE] scene -- I came through the hippie scene, the folkie scene." He tells the story of how he took up the fiddle and discovered Irish music in his own contribution to these notes, but it is worth repeating here that his first exposure to Irish traditional music was through a Folkways recording of the County Sligo fiddler Michael Gorman. Tony had many other musical influences before this, and would have many more afterward, but for him the appeal of the Sligo fiddle style would never fade.

Máirtín de Cógáin Project

mairtinmusic.com

Location

TBA

Tickets
$20	Adult
$10	Student/Senior

County Cork's very own tour de force comes to town with Máirtín de Cógáin and his band. The man himself from Cork is a balladeer like no other, bringing to life the story of each song to grip you with sorrow or bundle you over with joy. Together with Brian Miller (Bua) and Norah Rendell (The Outside Track) of Minnesota and Canada a wealth of music accumulates into a night of magical wonder.

A new and exciting band that is already taking the US by blizzard. Remember where you saw them first!