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Concert Review A real deal piper wows ’em at Towne Crier

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

By Earle Hitchner

NIAMH PARSONS, JOSEPHINE and PAT MARSH, MATTHEW PHELPS. At the Towne Crier Café, 62 Rte. 22, Pawling, Dutchess County, N.Y. March 20.

Sometimes cancellations can produce serendipitous results. That happened when the Emer Mayock Trio canceled their U.S. tour, which included this concert, and were replaced as an opener at the Towne Crier Café by Matthew Phelps.

A high-school senior from New Fairfield, Conn., this 17-year-old champion piper was pressed into service on short notice, yet he gave a performance evincing skill far beyond his years on both the highland pipes and the shuttle pipes (mouth-blown small pipes made in Nova Scotia). The poise Phelps showed on stage was as remarkable as his ability, making it understandable why the Halifax Police Pipe Band would fly him up to Nova Scotia on weekends to play with them.

Following the teen piper’s unscheduled and engaging performance, Dublin-born singer Niamh Parsons and Broadford, East Clare, button accordionist Josephine Marsh and her brother Pat on bouzouki took the stage. Their straightforward, no-frills approach produced some of the best Irish traditional live music heard this year.

As her self-titled solo album from late 1995 demonstrated, Josephine Marsh is a marvel, blessed with an irresistible lift and steady drive on the two-row box that rank with anything Sharon Shannon has done. Her playing of the hornpipes "Chuckling in the Bunk/Springtime," Turlough O’Carolan’s planxty "Mrs. Judge" with "Herman the German," and the reels "Paddy Kelly’s/Star of Munster" was flawless and inspired.

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Lead singer for Arcady and her own Loose Connections band, Niamh Parsons essentially stepped out on her own here, though the Marsh siblings provided aptly spare accompaniment at times. With a voice of husky beauty and depth, she sang "North Amerikay," a rare emigration song about two lovers finding happiness after leaving Ireland, and "The Flower of Magherally O," a song of a suitor praising the charms of a young County Down woman.

"Tinkerman’s Daughter," Mickey McConnell’s song about an old Kerry farmer’s ill-fated marriage to a much younger traveling woman, has become Parsons’ signature, and she sang it with all the rueful insight and simmering acrimony found in the composer’s lyrics.

Three other songs also took on a narrative life of their own through Parsons’ deft interpretation: "Kilnamartyra Exile," an emigration song of profound longing for home; "Fear a Bhata," a composition about a wife waiting for the return of her seafaring husband, and "Rambling Irishman," a ballad Dolores Keane made popular during her first tenure with De Dannan in the late 1970s.

Willie Kelly, an exceptional fiddler from New Jersey with Clare family roots, came up out of the audience to join the Marshes for a blast of reels, including "Bunker Hill." Those three remained on stage to play behind Parsons on the concluding song "Blackbirds and Thrushes," which then gave way to a cluster of spirited dance tunes, including "John Brosnan’s Reel."

This was a concert of two surprises (Phelps and Kelly) and three scheduled performers whose collective skills and attitude toward playing were an unadulterated joy to experience.

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