February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
That was the year Roscommon-born, former Bothy Band and Planxty flutist Matt Molloy joined the group via “The Chieftains 9: Boil the Breakfast Early” album.
The departure of Dublin fiddler Martin Fay and the death in October 2002 of Belfast harper Derek Bell have left the Chieftains as a dedicated quartet now: Molloy and three Dubliners, Kevin Conneff on lead vocal and bodhr_n, Se_n Keane on fiddle, and Paddy Moloney on uilleann pipes and tin whistle. To add diversity in the studio and on stage, they enlist different musical guests, and several joined the Chieftains at their March 9 concert in the 1,372-seat Concert Hall at SUNY/Purchase College’s Performing Arts Center in Purchase, N.Y.
Stepdancer Nathan Pilatzke and his brother, Jon, who plays the fiddle and also stepdances, are from Ottawa Valley, Canada, and have been on tours with the Chieftains for about three years. These charismatic siblings demonstrated their native region’s style of high-intensity, almost acrobatic stepdancing during the last two reels of the band’s opening set, “Brian Boru’s March/Nine Points of Roguery/The Magpie-Pretty Girls.”
Another guest, Laois harper Tr