Arts & Leisure - Irish Echo

The many musical sides of Martin Mulhaire

By Earle Hitchner Soft-spoken and unpretentious, composer and button accordionist Martin Mulhaire is a consummate gentleman who shuns the spotlight. He also happens to be one of the most gifted, knowledgeable, thoughtful, perceptive, tasteful, open-minded, and fascinating musicians I’ve ever met. Ezra Pound urged poets to “make it new.” Martin Mulhaire, who’s from Eyrecourt, East [...]

Published by admin on September 1st, 2010 at 08:09 am

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Quinn’s ‘Long Story’ is too brief

By Joseph Hurley “Long Story Short: A History of the World in 75 Minutes” Starring Colin Quinn, Directed by Jerry Seinfeld • at the 45 Bleecker Street Theater. Through Sept. 4, 2010. Colin Quinn doesn’t beg his capacity audiences to love him or even to follow his frequently complicated, often sober train of thought. He [...]

Published by admin on August 25th, 2010 at 08:08 am

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All-star concert to celebrate living legend Joe Derrane

By Earle Hitchner It’s no exaggeration to say that the all-star concert celebration for Joe Derrane will be a once-in-a-lifetime event. This special concert will honor the Boston-born button accordionist and composer for many reasons. They include his upcoming, superb new solo album, “Grove Lane,” for Compass Records; his extraordinary, influential, Irish traditional music from [...]

Published by admin on August 18th, 2010 at 07:08 am

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Trad stars shine at Festival of World Cultures

By Earle Hitchner DUN LAOGHAIRE, CO. DUBLIN – “What’s so funny ’bout peace, love, and understanding?” Elvis Costello (part-Irish real name: Declan Patrick McManus) sang in the Nick Lowe song he covered in 1979. Two other lines in that song are “And where is the harmony? / Sweet harmony.” Those lyrics flooded back to me [...]

Published by admin on August 11th, 2010 at 08:08 am

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McDermott returns as L.A. cop on TNT drama

By Karen Butler Irish-American actor Dylan McDermott says what sets his series “Dark Blue” apart from other television cop dramas is the quality of its writing and the uniqueness of its characters. In the series, the 48-year-old Connecticut native plays Los Angeles Police Department Lt. Carter Shaw, a man whose dedication to putting the bad [...]

Published by admin on August 4th, 2010 at 08:08 am

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Radio hosts get history all mixed up

BOOKS/Peter McDermott [A wartime photo of Free French leader General Charles de Gaulle. Library of Congress] Stieg Larsson, the late author of a trio of hits that has taken the publishing world by storm, was a serious investigator of neo-Nazis. So it’s hardly surprising then that the far right crops up in his fiction. A [...]

Published by admin on August 4th, 2010 at 08:08 am

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Blazing music, dance, and heat in Catskills

By Earle Hitchner Confronting a stagnant economy and stifling weather, the 16th annual Catskills Irish Arts Week of July 11-17 emerged as an artistic triumph of vision, taste, and execution ranking among the finest ever. In his seven years as artistic director, Paul Keating has worked hard to transform CIAW from a favorite regional event [...]

Published by admin on July 28th, 2010 at 07:07 am

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Lance Daly’s ‘Kisses’ blow into U.S. theaters

By Karen Butler letters@irishecho.com When his plans to make an Irish racecar picture crashed and burned a few years ago, Dublin writer-director Lance Daly decided to scale back a bit and work on something smaller and more character-driven. The result was his celebrated, bittersweet film “Kisses,” which is in U.S. theaters now. “I was trying [...]

Published by admin on July 21st, 2010 at 08:07 am

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Holmes is where the heart is

By Earle Hitchner “Do not fear death so much but rather the inadequate life.” That warning comes from Bertolt Brecht’s play “The Mother,” and the lives of music led by Joe Holmes and Len Graham surely prove they grasped the gist of Brecht’s message. Neither has anything to fear from posterity. Holmes (1906-78) was from [...]

Published by admin on July 14th, 2010 at 10:07 am

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Remembering a valued friend

By Elaine Ní Bhraonáin The Irish Arts Center was one of the first places I visited when I moved to New York in early June 2003 and I knew straight away that it was a unique place. The center already had a vibrant Irish language program, but there was a vacancy for an Irish language [...]

Published by admin on July 7th, 2010 at 08:07 am