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Trad Beat Peerless Altan display usual virtuosity

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

By Earle Hitchner

ALTAN. At Tomlinson Auditorium, Fairfield, Conn. April 8.

Dust-up arguments over seminal Irish traditional bands of the past decades often settle at least on these: the Chieftains in the 1960s, Planxty and the Bothy Band in the 1970s, De Dannan in the 1980s, and Altan in the 1990s. Based on this Connecticut concert toward the end of their North American tour, Altan obviously have no intention of loosening their grip on the first decade of this century, either.

With "Riverdance" percussionist Jim Higgins and Connemara sean-nós stepdancer Joe Neachtain as guests, the quintet’s performance was outstanding from start to finish. Everything clicked, even the impromptu "dancing" in dresses by Neachtain and two male members of the band’s technical crew, who were hilarious as they capered on stage at the concert’s close.

Led by the fiery, complementary fiddling of Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh and Ciaran Tourish, Altan’s Donegal-styled attack on "Gusty’s Frolics/Con’s Slip Jig/The Pretty Young Girls of Carrick/The Humours of Whiskey" and "The King of Meenasillagh/Lamey’s/The High Fiddle Reel" made those jigs and reels, respectively, jump out without any sacrifice in control. And the three "Rosses Highlands" performed by Altan nimbly straddled that tricky no man’s land of dance tunes tucked in tempo somewhere between a Scots strathspey and an Irish reel.

No other Irish group now active is as successful at maintaining the delicate balance between melody and rhythm instruments while still fully showcasing the virtuosity of individual members, and nowhere was that more evident than in Altan’s playing of "Fermanagh Highland/Donegal Highland/John Doherty’s/King George IV." The band’s agile progression from highland to highland, then from Donegal reel to Cape Breton reel, in a truly inspired arrangement packed as much power as any four-minute medley imaginable.

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Ní Mhaonaigh’s singing of such songs as "10,000 Miles" (with Tourish on tin whistle), "Green Grow the Rushes" (with audience participation), and especially "Tuirse Mo Chroí" (with Higgins using brushes on a snare drum) was immaculate. Even the over-roasted chestnut of "The Parting Glass" was injected with new life by Dáithí Sproule, accompanied by Tourish on fiddle and Ciaran Curran, now recovered from his disabling shoulder ailment of a few months ago, on bouzouki.

Toss in a lovely acoustic guitar solo by Sproule, a brilliant box solo by Dermot Byrne (will he ever get the wider recognition he’s earned?) backed by Higgins on bodhrán, and a cauterizing fiddle duet by Tourish and Ní Mhaonaigh, and the result is Irish music as good as it gets, as good as it should be.

Altan’s performance was another triumphant offering from the Shamrock Traditional Irish Music Society of Fairfield, Conn., whose acoustic concert series over the last two years serves as a blueprint on how to pick and present some of the best Irish music available.

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