Road to the Isles Sample Concert Program
(Selections subject to change)

Download a printable version of the sample concert program in .pdf format.

Road to the Isles

A journey through music and dance to the lochs and glens of the old Celtic lands.

George Balderose: Highland Pipes, Smallpipes, Uilleann pipe; Oliver Browne: Irish Fiddle; Brittany Maniet: Scottish Dance; Melinda Crawford: Scottish Fiddle; Caroline McCarthy: Irish Dance; Richard Hughes : Flute, Guitar, vocals.

Road to the Isles celebrates the bond between the Irish and the Scottish people, who share much in their cultural traditions. The ensembles' first CD, The Way Home, received stellar reviews from Scottish and Nova Scotia music journals. "Excellent Traditional Scottish and Irish Music," — Celtic Heritage, Halifax, Nova Scotia. "The musicianship reflects the high-level raining and experience of the ensemble's members." — Piping Today, Glasgow, Scotland. Most of the ensemble's members have been performing and/or competing successfully since they were children. In a couple of cases that was a very long time ago!

The theme running through a Road to the Isles performance is the "auld" times of music, song and dance in Scotland and Ireland. It is the music of the hearth, the kitchen, and the fireside. For hundreds of years it has been the chosen entertainment for many at home as well as at the castle. It often speaks to those whose heart is in the highlands, mountains, lochs, or glens. American folk, country, and bluegrass music rests upon solid foundations in part established by this cultural heritage.

In the words of the Irish poet William Butler Yeats: "Folk art is, indeed, the oldest of the aristocracies of thought, and because it refuses what is passing and trivial, the merely clever and pretty, as certainly as the vulgar and insincere, and because it has gathered into itself the simplest and most unforgettable thoughts of generations, it is the soil where all great art is rooted. "(Celtic Twilight, 1902)

The ensembles' unique performances offer a focus for comparing and contrasting the traditional music, song, and dance of the Scottish and Irish people. Musical director, raconteur, and concert tour guide Richard Hughes weaves a lifetime of storytelling, poetry, melody and song on the concert stage. In Richard's words: The reality of traditional music enables you as the performer and you as the listener to leave the time you're in and experience that period of history.

For a wee while please join us and celebrate our common heritage of traditional Irish and Scottish music, song, and dance, major contributors to much that is great in American culture.

Sample Concert Program

(Selections subject to change)

First Set

1. Bagpipe Marches: The Road to the Isles, Minstrel Boy, Wearing of the Green, Scotland the Brave. Reel: The Mason’s Apron
2. Sword Dance — TheGhillie Callum
3. Song: The Galway Races
4. Two Reels: Coffee and Tea
5. Lowland Set: John Anderson My Jo, Mount Your Baggage, Go Tae Berwick Johnny
6. Scottish fiddle solo: Maclean’s Bonnie Lassie (strathspey); Timor the Tartar & John MacNeill (reels)
7. Dances: Highland Fling and Reel — The Keel Row, What Ails Ye, Orange and Blue, (strathspeys); The High Road to Linton (reel).
8. Flute Solo: The Rights of Man, Bantry Bay, The Greencastle
9. Dance: Irish Slip Jig –The Rocky Road to Dublin + Drops of Brandy 2nd time in round)
10. Irish fiddle solo: Lads o’ Beirne, The Silver Spire
11. Song: ‘The Bonnie Ship the Diamond’
12. Dance: The Sailor’s Hornpipe — My Love is But a Lassie Yet & The Rakes of Mallow.

INTERMISSION

Second Set

1. 6/8 Bagpipe March — The Sweet Maid of Mull
2. Dance: Sean Triubhas ‘ ’Whistle o’er the Lave o’t
3. Bagpipe Competition Medley: Donald MacLean’s Farewell to Oban (2/4 march), Maggie Cameron (strathspey), De’il Amang the Tailors (reel)
4. Dance: Slow Hornpipe: The Plains of Boyle
5. Song: On Raglan Road
6. Dance: The Highland Laddie
7. Dance: Irish Hardshoe Reel; Frank Kennelly’s Reel
8. Lowland reels: Jackie Latin, Duns Dings ‘A or Jenny Dang the Weaver OR Rattlin Roarin Willie & The Atholl Highlanders
9. Irish Polkas: Paddy Curran’s, Lovely Molly, Wilson’s
10. Song: The Parting Glass
11. Dance: Jig. Irish Washerwoman, Paddy’s Leather Britches, The Kesh Jig

This project is partially supported by a grant from Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour, a program developed and funded by the Vira I. Heinz Endowment; the William Penn Foundation; the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency; and the Pew Charitable Trusts; and administered by the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation.

Funding for concert performances and workshops by Road to the Isles is available to non-profit presenters throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. For more information contact PennPat at (www.pennpat.org) (215)496-9424, or Music Tree at () (412) 323-2707.