Eileen Ivers -- a Celtic fiddler whose music mixes jazz, Latin percussion, Irish strings, and American soul -- will perform an Irish Christmas concert tomorrow night that Duxbury's Performing Arts Center is billing as a fund-raising event for itself.
The three- year-old, state-of-the-art auditorium is raising money to finish off its orchestra pit and develop an annual performance series.
The hall, which seats 970, hosts concerts, plays, and civic events.
It has also provided a venue for regional arts organizations such as the Hingham Symphony and the Fine Arts Chorale. Performing Arts Center manager Tony Kelso said the town is trying to extend the center's reach with a concert series featuring performers of national stature.
Ivers's concert will feature a Christmas program of reels and traditional carols called "An Nollaig: An Irish Christmas.
" (The Irish words translate as "Christmas time.") It also includes a new arrangement of a familiar Bach holiday piece "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring " played in the style of an Irish jig, and a gospel song at its conclusion, "Will the Circle Be Unbroken."
Recent performances of the show have provided an energy rush for both performers and audience, Ivers said.
"People are standing and clapping to tunes. It's a show I'm very proud of."
Ivers, who toured with the popular Irish musical Riverdance for three years and headlined this year's Boston Folk Festival, currently performs with Immigrant Soul, an ensemble that many place in the forefront of a trend toward joining vibrant world music traditions in new combinations.
Ivers, the daughter of Irish parents from County Mayo, grew up in New York City studying the fiddle, playing traditional music at local gatherings, and entering (and winning) Irish music competitions. She also studied math at Iona College back when playing the Celtic fiddle did not appear a viable way to make a living.
"I never dreamt to play music for my career.
It's just a privilege, something you loved to do," Ivers said.
The performer's joy, Ivers said, is "to lift them" -- her audiences "to a different place, bring them flying high."
Her career has included performing with The Chieftains, "true ambassadors of the music," and in Riverdance.
Formed 40 years ago, The Chieftains, the unofficial "chiefs of Celtic music," were central to the contemporary revival of the full range and vitality of the Celtic musical tradition -- jigs, reels, ballads, comic songs, marching songs, message songs, pub songs.
Riverdance helped bring Irish music from its traditional place "in the corner of pubs playing for 40 or 50 people" to concert stages throughout the world. A stage show making use of dancers and theatrical sound and lighting, Riverdance "opened my eyes," Ivers said, to the music's potential to speak to wider audiences.
Her current band, Immigrant Soul, incorporates African percussion techniques to "underpin melodies" the way they do in jazz and blues, she said. The ensemble's unusual makeup -- jazz bassist Gregory Jones, native New Yorker percussionist and vocalist Tommy Mc Donnell, Dublin native guitarist James Riley, and flutist Isaac Alderson -- "makes the music more rhythmically interesting. It makes it more accessible through rhythm," Ivers said.
Immigrant Soul, touring nationally, was "flying high" for a show in mile-high Denver last week, before being trapped at the airport by a blizzard. New Jersey was next on the schedule, then on to Duxbury for tomorrow's appearance.
The Duxbury concert will include dancers from the Haley School of Irish Step Dance and the Duxbury-based Snug Harbor Community Chorus.
The money raised has many uses, say organizers of the event. The Performing Arts Center needs funds to install carpeting in the orchestra pit, as well as acoustical panels, a fire exit and handicapped access, Kelso said. Currently orchestras accompanying stage musicals are seated on the stage's aprons.
The concert takes place at 7:30 p.m. at the Performing Arts Center on the Duxbury schools campus at 75 Alden St.
Tickets are $25, $18 for students and seniors. Limited reserved seating tickets for $50 include a reception with the band afterwards. For tickets, call 781-934-7612.
Tickets are also being sold at Artica Gallery and Westwinds Bookshop in Duxbury.
News RSS