The Piper's Hut Concert Series

2010

Larry Nugent

Location

Channing Murray
1209 West Oregon
Urbana, IL

Tickets
$20	Adult
$10	Student/Senior

Start Valentine's day early by taking a loved one to hear sensuous Irish music in live performance by a renowned master. The beautiful setting--wooden floors and a vaulted wooden ceiling, reminiscent of a ship--complete the picture for a romantic evening.

Laurence Nugent carries on a great tradition of virtuoso flute and whistle playing that has graced Irish music on both sides of the Atlantic. As an established performer and recording artist on the Celtic music circuit, Laurence has performed with scores of musicians including The Chieftains, Shane McGowan, Van Morrison, The Drovers, The Green Fields of America, Martin Hayes, Dennis Cahill and Paddy Keenan. He has been a featured performer at Milwaukee Irish Fest, San Francisco Irish Fest, Glen Echo Festival in Washington DC, Willie Clancy Summer School in Ireland, and the International Flute Festival De Cornouaille Quimper in France. He has toured extensively throughout Ireland, the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan. He has been heard extensively on radio, including A Prairie Home Companion, The Studs Terkel Show, and Ireland's national network RTE. He also appears on the Shanachie recording Celtic Tapestry along with Solas, De Dannan, Clannad, Planxty and Silly Wizard.

Laurence Nugent comes from the village of Lack in County Fermanagh, an area steeped in the traditional arts of music, singing and storytelling. Not surprisingly, his first musical influences came from within his own family. His father Sean Nugent was an All-Ireland fiddle champion and leader of the Pride of Erin Ceili Band, one of the top Irish dance bands of its day, and Laurence grew up listening to some of the finest players in the land. Like many young musicians of his generation, Laurence entered many of the regional and national competitions held under the auspices of the Irish musicians association Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann; he took first prize in junior competitions three times in the late 80's, and went on to win the senior All Ireland Championships in 1994 and 1995. Since moving to Chicago in 1992, Laurence has played a large part in the local scene as an anchor and resource for traditional Irish music in the area. The informal music sessions he has led over the years in Chicago have been well-known for their fine quality of both music and hospitality. He has taught hundreds of students in private lessons, in classes at the Old Town School of Folk Music, and in workshops throughout the United States and Ireland. One student (Isaac Alderson) has gone on to win his own All-Ireland championship.

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!