Cityfolk is proud to present the Dervish, the internationally heralded Irish music ensemble, in concert on Friday, March 22 at Stivers School for the Arts. The concert start at 8:00 pm and is reserved seating. Tickets are $25 and be ordered at www.cityfolk.org or be calling the Cityfolk box office at 937-496-3863.
Dervish has won considerable acclaim for its rare skill in “bringing music from the session to the stage,” in the words of co-founding band member Brian McDonagh. Fronted by the charismatic singer Cathy Jordan, the Irish septet is perhaps the only traditional Irish music group in the world to have inspired “tribute bands,” which are found in many countries, but especially so in Russia and Israel.
Inspired by such legendary County Sligo musicians as Michael Coleman and James Morrison (who recorded in the U.S. in the 1920s), Dervish has “truly absorbed the techniques and, more importantly, the soul that has driven Irish traditional musicians through the years and come out of it with all the freshness, verve and timeless appeal associated with the great Irish bands of the 1970s and early 1980s…They carry Irish history with them” (Irish Voice).
The roots of Dervish stretch back to 1989, when five Irish musicians who played together at weekly pub sessions—including Liam Kelly (flute, whistles), Shane Mitchell (accordion), Michael Holmes (bouzouki, mandolin) and Brian McDonagh (mandola, guitar)—recorded an album of traditional music from County Sligo as the Boys from Sligo.
Initially, there were no plans beyond making the album, but that went so well the quintet decided to become a real band—a working band—known as Dervish. Two years later, the band assumed its present format with the addition of singer Cathy Jordan from County Roscommon and All-Ireland Fiddle Champion Shane McAleer. Amazingly, this hard-working band has had only one significant personnel change in the ensuing 22 years, fiddler Tom Morrow (from County Leitrim and another All-Ireland Fiddle Champion) joining the ranks in 1998.
Dervish made its recording debut in 1993 with Harmony Hill and has made a total of 11 albums, all released on the band’s own Whirling Disc label.
“Irish music is one of the oldest forms of music, yet it is influenced an awful lot by other things,” explains Cathy Jordan. “It evolves and evolves. Our sound is very recognizable because of the bouzouki and mandola. And though we have a modern style within the Irish context, you might not say it’s really modern, because it blends in so well. But in actual fact there are a lot of modern influences in there.
“We experiment without straying too far from the roots. We give people something familiar, yet it’s in the genre of traditional music. It’s all the instrumentation of Irish music. But it plays with people’s perceptions a bit.”
