Concert: Áine and/or Band: To Warm the WINTER's Night Tour

A Celtic mid-Winter Celebration

"With familiar carols and wintry Celtic ballads, tales, and poetry, her holiday concerts become a lilting, lulling way to make sweet sense of the season."

BOSTON GLOBE  

Mixing music and poetry with the option of video containing magnificent winter scenery, this show embodies a contemplative mood and features music tailored to the celebration of Celtic mid-winter traditions. By turns solemn and joyous, "To Warm a Winter's Night"  offers an emotional and evocative musical experience and is a wonderful alternative to the usual holiday fare.  

This Pan-Celtic odyssey is an enchanting evening of music, storytelling, and tradition.

We suggest solo or full-band.  Duo and trio doesn't seem to work as well for this particular show.  

Works very well in large venues with full band and multi-media.

NOTE:  Videos are HD and professionally shot and edited by filmmaker Michael Yip.  

"The concert was nothing less than an enchanting evening of music, storytelling, in the Celtic tradition.  When Áine Minogue is back in town, drop everything and go to see her."

(Band Review, Maine, 2007)

 "Áine's annual holiday show at Passim is something that we've grown to count on.  A show with great talent that's always full, no matter what night we put it on.  A pleasure!"  

Matt Smith, Club Passim, Cambridge (solo show)  

Band Line Up:

Áine Minogue, Irish harp and vocals
Eugene Friesen, Cello and Vocals
Bass, Guitars, Keyboards, Loops: Scott Petito
Percussion/Keyboards: Chris Carey
Options: videos of winter scenery (filmed in HD); dancer; artist exhibit: Irish landscapes

Tools of the show

* Music tailored to the celebration of ancient Celtic mid-winter traditions.
* Script tailored to tell the “story” of mid-winter in the Celtic countries (sample below)
* Multi-media show: Videos winter scenery from Ireland & New England.
* Show is all about mood; contemplative; an alternative to the usual holiday fare.
* First half scripted for a story act; moody - 2nd half more casual and upbeat
NOTE: A few carols: Silent Night, Greensleeves & In the deep mid-Winter are included.

Script Sample:

"Back in the ancient days, when twilight was the holiest time, when the veil between the real world and the realm of the gods and spirits was thin; when creatures who did not migrate or go to ground, like the wren and deer, were worshipped; when plants that did not die - the evergreens of fir and holly and mistletoe - were sacred reminders that the brown, cold world was not dead, but only sleeping, to awaken and give birth to itself again in the spring; people huddled together in the darkened corners of their lives, and sang, together, this song." (Song Follows)

WEATHER:

If we get snowed out, even if we can't get back to you before the holidays - the show is only slightly different come January.

REVIEW OF BAND SHOW, Maine 2007

from this link: http://www.coastaljournal.com/website/content/view/189/ Winter with Áine Minogue

by Gina Hamilton Coastal Journal staff

BATH - Across the cold and dark solstice night of Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, people gathered together to sing, dance, and coax back the Sun at this darkest time of year.  Áine Minogue's 'To Warm a Winter’s Night' at the Chocolate Church on December 8 explored and celebrated the symbolism, the gathering despair and darkness of midwinter, and finally, the ultimate joy in renewal of nature that the Solstice represents.

Áine Minogue plays the harp, and sings.  With her at this concert were cello virtuoso Eugene Friesen and the guitar/percussion band DruidStone.

As Minogue explains, the Solstice celebrations occurred well before the advent (pardon the pun) of modern midwinter traditions such as Christmas and Hannukah, whose timing likely sprang from the ubiquitous Solstice celebrations that occurred all over the world.  It was easy enough for the fathers of the nascent Christian Church to convince seasonal holiday makers to exchange the light of the Sun ... the true ‘reason for the season’ ... for the “Light of the World”, as Jesus Christ is sometimes called.

Minogue and her friends told stories and sang about the fragile nature of seasonal change ... about how closely this world ... the world of the land ... intersects with the other worlds - the world of the dead, and the world of the sea - during the Solstices and Equinoxes.  One of the recurring themes in Ireland is that of the spirit woman, the banshee, who fortells death and brings messages from the dead.  “Song of the Bean Si (Banshee)”, then, was a dark and fearful song.

On the other hand, a lovely piece about a messenger from the sea ... “I am a Selkie”, tells the story of a woman living in both the world of the land and the world of the sea.

The quartet explored ancient Celtic places of mystery and holiness, such as in the song “The Grove”.  Celts worshipped places where change occurred, just as they worshipped times in the year where change occurred.  Seashores, and groves, before they give way to deep forest and open field, are holy places.

As the Solstice passes, and light returns, the quiet and contemplative period comes to an end, and joyous merrymaking takes its place.  During the second half of the show, the group explored the joys of the season ... from the eyes of children and parents.  Eugene Friesen performed his “duet” with a humpback whale recording, “Humpback Harmony”.  And at the very end, the group explored some more modern expressions of the season, in Christmas carols, such as “In the Bleak Midwinter” and a Gaelic version of "Silent Night."

The concert was nothing less than an enchanting evening of music and storytelling, in the Celtic tradition.  When Áine Minogue is back in town, drop everything and go to see her.

ÁINE MINOGUE HOLIDAY CONCERT

Why do we celebrate this season like no other?

Why do we long to linger over memo-ries, hear the same old songs, eat the same rich foods, and huddle with friends and family?

Lovely Irish harpist and singer Áine Minogue looks for answers in the most ancient ways people celebrated midwinter, the darkest time of the year.

With familiar carols and wintry Celtic ballads, tales, and poetry, her holiday concerts become a lilting, lulling way to make sweet sense of the season.

BOSTON GLOBE by Scott Alarik

Saturday night, Áine Minogue brought her ethereal voice and virtuoso playing to the Common Fence Music Series in Portsmouth for her seventh annual Christmas performance. Minogue sang carols and other traditional favorites in Gaelic and English before a packed house at the Common Fence point Community Hall in Portsmouth. Portsmouth resident Ed Nary, who runs the series along with Tom Parotti of Middletown, first heard Minogue perform in Cambridge, Mass. He invited the Irish native, who now lives in Arlington, Mass., to come to Common Fence, where she continues to be one of the series most popular performing artists.

The beauty of the Common Fence series, now in its ninth season, is that the audience sits close to the performers in a rustic cabaret setting. Watching Minogue pluck strings and deftly tune her instrument, seemingly at the same time proved fascinating. But, eventually, you find yourself closing your eyes to appreciate the full effect of her music. Her pure tones stir the air like the beating of countless seraphim wings. Clearly, this is a voice that has never been earthbound. To hear Aine Minogue sing is to loose all worldly cares.

NEWPORT THIS WEEK REVIEW By Sylvia Smith December 20, 2001

BOSTON GLOBE

HINGHAM - Before December became the season of Christmas and Hanukkah, it was nonetheless an important and holy time. Particularly for people in northern climes, midwinter was a period of fear, full of the dangers that dark, cold winter can bring.

So customs were created to bring communities together. They lamented the dying of the old year, marked by winter solstice, and they celebrated the world's turning again, toward the growing light of spring.

The local Irish harpist Áine Minogue has become something of a musical midwinter druid for the local folk community. This time of year, she is in demand throughout New England, thanks largely to the enduring popularity of her 1995 Evergreen CD, "To Warm the Winter's Night," a beautifully hushed journey through Celtic and English midwinter and Christmas music.

For the second year, Minogue brought her holiday show to the wood-warmed, tall-windowed hall of First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church, also known as the Old Ship Church for the shape of its 17th-century sanctuary. The coffeehouse hall, which is across the street, was packed to its 200-seat limit for the 4 p.m. show - ideally timed for the woodsy window view to form a perfect backdrop to her eloquent harp and her soft, lovely voice.

Minogue is steeped in Celtic lore, and she peeled back the layers of the Christmas we know to reveal the still-vibrant roots of the pre-Christian midwinter holiday. The skies darkened as if on cue while she sang her way back from familiar carols to older Celtic airs, like the mystical "The Grove," and the brooding hymn "In the Deep Midwinter," filled with dark, chill images.

Minogue's airy soprano was barely above a whisper, but it was an exquisitely controlled whisper. On a Gaelic rendition of "Silent Night," she arched to the daunting heights without peaking her volume in the least, all the more remarkable in the thick of the consonant-rich Gaelic lyrics.

Minogue's harp was wonderfully articulate, whether plucking out quick-hop jigs or hauntingly pretty airs, which she joked were played to a serendipitous cadence called "international harp time." "King of the Faeries" sounded just like its name shimmering with antique mystery and playfulness. "Study in D" was so tenderly romantic that the crowd sighed in unison for several seconds before disturbing the quiet with applause.

Between songs, Minogue told witty tales of her girlhood in Tipperary, and she explained Celtic spirituality's belief that earth, air, fire and water are the elements of life; so that where two or more combined - in the seashore, mist, woodsmoke, veils were created between physical and spiritual worlds. Those places and substances were deemed especially holy.

The trees were now stark shadows against the slate sky; those gathered within were like some ancient huddled community, swaying together as Minogue sang an old Irish carol about just such dark winter nights and the comfort of just such gatherings.

Rue Dune, Chocolate Church, Bathe, Maine Rue Dune Very popular (particularly in New England) - shows sell out year after year.

Band Review, Maine 2008

"The concert was nothing less than an enchanting evening of music, storytelling, in the Celtic tradition. When Aine Minogue is back in town, drop everything and go to see her."

Solo Review, RI 2008

"eventually, you find yourself closing your eyes to appreciate the full effect of her music. Her pure tones stir the air like the beating of countless seraphim wings. Clearly, this is a voice that has never been earthbound. To hear Aine Minogue sing is to loose all worldly cares."

A NOTE ON WINTER WEATHER:

If we get snowed out, even if we can't get back to you before the holidays - the show is only slightly different come January.
It's all about Celtic mid-winter and to some degree the solstice, but 'winter' is really the star of the show.

Diane Bryan, Director
WATERVILLE OPERA HOUSE, Waterville, ME

"A charming show in keeping with the spirit of the season.
A true audience pleaser.
People return year after year...."

(Band Review, 2007)

Our recommending presented for the solo presentation is:

Club Passim (the Old Club 47)
47 Palmer Street
Cambridge, MA
Matthew (Matt) Smith
matt@passimcenter.org
617 492 5300

"Áine's annual holiday show at Passim is something that we've grown to count on. A show with great talent that's always full, no matter what night we put it on. A pleasure!"

Matt Smith, Club Passim, Cambridge, MA