Fiddler Eileen Ivers celebrates Saint Patrick's Day at Quick Center

Fiddler Eileen Ivers celebrates Saint Patrick's Day at Quick Center

Steep yourself in the culture of Ireland at the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts' annual St. Patrick's Day Celebration, this year featuring fiddler Eileen Ivers, on Friday, March 9 at 8 p.m. on the campus of Fairfield University. A post-show St. Patrick's party in the lobby is scheduled.

From her star musical turn in "Riverdance" to her 30-plus medals in the All-Ireland Championships, Ivers has established herself among the pre-eminent exponents of the Irish fiddle in the world today. Listen to her music and you'll sense that around the time she learned to hold a spoon, she also began to wield a fiddle bow. You'll also learn that her ears are seldom at rest. If you've followed her career, you've seen a young musician develop from traditional Irish fiddle champion to world explorer.

Her fourth album, "Crossing the Bridge," is startling in its geographic variety: Spain, Africa, West Indies, Cuba and Ireland, always Ireland. In it you'll hear jazz, jigs, hip hop, strains of reggae, flamenco and blue grass. The Irish never stray far from country music because who, after all, brought it to America?

Eileen is to Irish music as Michael Flatley is to Irish dance - a pioneer, an innovator, a universalist. She grew up in boom-box Bronx and carries sounds from childhood that are embedded in her soul. She's Irish, she's American, she's international. She's played solo and with groups in the noisiest of pubs and clubs, on cruise ships, in arenas and stadiums and, in Radio City Music Hall.

She's restless, ready to take her fiddle to mountain, prairie, savannah and jungle and bring back sounds that keep up fresh and renew us. Still there's always this Irish "thing" in her music - that wail followed by a jolt of a beat that catapults you to your feet. It doesn't matter who she's playing with - she somehow slides in those Celtic genes and yet, all the time, there are echoes of Bronx Irish. Eileen Ivers can take you around the world as a musician, an explorer and, above all, as a teacher.

Tickets to the Eileen Ivers concert, which is part of the Emerald Isle series, are $30 with discounts available for seniors, students and groups. To reserve call the box office at (203) 254-4010 or toll free at 1-877-ARTS-396.

Posted On: 02-14-2001 09:02 AM

Volume: 33 Number: 135