Concert: To Welcome In the SPRING

To Welcome In the Spring

"Somewhere between listening and dreaming, between classical and folk, between myth and history, you’ll find Áine Minogue’s music....Minogue is a spellbinding performer on the Celtic harp"

WORCHESTER GAZETTE & TELEGRAPH

(Review of "To Welcome in the Spring" concert at Tower Hill Botanic Gardens) 

This presentation is one of the "Celtic Wheel of the Year" concert options and seeks to "Welcome in the Spring."  These shows usually start after St. Patrick's Day and can run well into the Spring.   See "background" for program favorites.

We love to celebrate 'indoors' what's happening outside.   

This is generally a solo show, but duo would be an option, especially with Eugene on cello.  

Instrumentals such as “A Winter Story” explore the quiet that can be experienced in the midst of harsh winter, while “King of the Faeries” and the “Butterfly” joyously usher in the Spring!

Songs will include “Winter, Fire & Snow,” a magical song that explores the beauty and silence of snow. The song,”Between the Worlds’ seeks to celebrate the Spring Equinox.

The Old Celtic calendar celebrated the natural turning of the seasons and paid particular attention to the solstices and equinoxes. During these times, it was believed that the veil ‘between the worlds’ was very thin….

Here is so more info on the old Celtic Calendar:

The Celtic cycle of the year was marked by four major "fire festivals": Beltaine (May 1) ,Lughnasadh, (August 1) Imbolc,(February 1) and of course Samhain(October 31) or Halloween, as it has come to be known These boundaries marked the new season, and allowed for movement between the worlds as lines along which the supernatural were thought to break through to the surface of existence.

These “fire” festivals, as they were known revolved around the agricultural cycle of the year, and they led the people in the union of practical life and the earthly world with that of the spirit.

During these seasonal feasts, the veil between the worlds was thought to be lifted, the obstacles removed, the laws of space suspended, and communion with one's ancestors became a distinct possibility. They celebrated freedom from addiction to the purely visible, in the age-old premise of a life beyond this one, in which our ancestors are no further away than the next world. And that world itself being rather close by.

Beltaine occurred on the First of May, May Day, and marked the beginning of the "light half" of the year. It was symbolized by the white flowering hawthorn tree, around which ritual dancing took place to ensure a good harvest (Lughnasadh – August 1) later that year.

Samhain or Halloween occurred on October 31 and marked the beginning of the “dark half” of the year.

Samhain was the feast that marked the end of the "light half" of the year and the beginning of the "dark half." The light half was that of the people, the dark half belonged to the earth, the cycle of time being expressed in the basic duality of darkness and light. Samhain, or Halloween as it has come to be known, was actually New Year's Eve in the Celtic calendar. For the Celts, the dark always preceded the light, and day began at dusk, not dawn. The children's tradition of otherworldly creatures coming to life on Halloween has its origins in the ancient feast of Samhain. The custom of dressing up in costume was commonplace. It was acceptable to stretch the boundaries by assuming a different identity to welcome the supernatural.

MINOGUE MASTERS “ULTIMATE INSTRUMENT

Worcester – Somewhere between listening and dreaming, between classical and folk, between myth and history, you’ll find Aine Minogue’s music.

Minogue is a spellbinding performer on the Celtic harp, an instrument you don’t see many people picking up with a light interest. Watching her train her thoughts along the instrument’s long strings, sustaining beautiful melodies with one hand and crafting hypnotic rhythms with the other, makes clear the dedication she has given the instrument.

Minogue’s music is a magic even she can’t quite explain. “I don’t know why I fell so in love with the instrument. I played other instruments. But I found an intrinsic sound to the instrument that, to me, made it the ultimate instrument,” she said.”

“There’s also a lot of legend surrounding the harp,” she said. You hear about the healing properties of the music. With the harp, you stop listening to the tune and just let the sound take you some place else. I think visually, and the harp allows me to do that.”

Minogue made her point at a concert last week at Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston. Although she sang just a few songs during the two-hour program, there was not a moment you wouldn’t call lyrical.

Minogue returns to Tower hill tomorrow. The show was added after last week’s concert sold out.

Minogue discovered the harp at age 12 while attending boarding school in Galway, Ireland. She perfected her skills as a harpist at Bunratty Castle in County Clare, mirroring the sort of apprenticeship harpists undertook in the instrument’s 18th-century heyday.

She eventually imigrated from Ireland to the United States and now lives in Arlington. In 1993, she released her debut compact disc, “Were You At the Rock,” a broad showcase of traditional dance and concert pieces.

The subsequent “Between the Worlds” and “Circle of the Sun” further delved into the mythical roots embodied in harp music. Minogue’s fascination with Druid mythology and naturalist themes in those CDs kicked open whole new avenues of thought for fans of Celtic music.

Still, more can be done to expose the full breadth of sounds under the Celtic umbrella.

“I do some programs in schools and I’ll ask ‘So what do you think about Ireland?’ and I expect to hear answers about ‘Riverdance’ or some of our famous literature,’ Minogue said. “Instead I hear about green beer and leprechauns, and all I can think is ‘Oh my God.’”

By the time she gets down with a crowd, Minogue can shed some light on famed 18th-century harpist Turlough OCarolan; show the roots of Simon And Garfunkel’s “Scarborough Fair” in the traditional “Rosemary Faire”; explain some differences between young jigs (tunes that are just a few hundred years old) and ancient melodies; and point out that the harp is the national symbol of Ireland, making it the only country to have a musical instrument as its symbol.

But before all this becomes too academic to be enjoyable, keep in mind that Minogue is a performer first and a teacher second. Traditional songs are chosen, she said, more for the beauty of their melodies (she even strays into some Welsh material) than for historical significance.

Minogue also keeps alive the music with her own compositions drawn from the harp’s deepest traditions. “Between the Worlds” and “A Winter Story” are mesmerizing originals tunes that create the sort of suspension of time Minogue alludes to as one of the instrument’s magical qualities.

Minogue said she found mythological ideas useful when she was writing songs that grappled with her own emotional state. Thus, she’s sticking to the ancient on a forthcoming CD, which is all drawn from mythological themes.

“I think that this music is useful in dealing with all the crazy ideas in the world now.” She said. “I’m writing from the myths to express something about the time of year and state of mind. But it’s not going to be academic. It’s going to be a journey of the imagination.”

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