 The next demo for you is Scottish Country Dancing, and this is a demonstration of the Strep Spade Step, and it will be performed by Elizabeth and Company, and it will be danced to the tune, Carolyn's Dream. Do you want to walk it one more time? Yes. Right. And they're fill-head programs, which is a program, and for all levels. And I do a little residency with them, and I bring some of my heart students. So we bring the heartburners, and fiddlers, and other instruments together to work on some pieces right to their local Caroline. And since the last time I was here, young tradition of Vermont has become part of Vermont Pope Life, which is the future of what has been such an important program. And the new director, Ian Furry, is here with us today in Cape Brighton Island in Nova Scotia on that trip. And Ava here is an alumni of that group, and youth leader of that as well. So it's just really great to bring these young folks together. We have a piece prepared for you today called Premenia. So it's not one of Caroline, but I think it's an absolute gem. One of my favorite things to do in my practice time is to sit there with the Caroline book and go through looking for gems. And I really think this is one of them, so we hope you... And she's also just competed in one of the most... She was a finalist and one of the most prestigious heart competitions for Scottish music in the country. The Princess Margaret of the Isles competition down in Charleston, right? And she played absolutely beautifully as a finalist there. So I'm immensely proud of her. And she's going to play a couple of tunes that I think might be familiar to many of you who love Caroline's music. She's going to be playing Eleanor Plunkett and Bridget Cruz, which are two of my very favorite Caroline tunes. These are the first two tunes I think I learned by Caroline and I think the first tunes I ever played here, which might have also been around the time I first started playing her. So this is kind of a callback to that time. Thank you so much for having me. So Eva and I are going to play a duet for you now. This is a tune called Caroline's Cup. And it actually predates Caroline. It's a beautiful Irish song and air, known as Brøyh, the Caracabana, the Bank of the White Rocks. But this I think was Caroline's own setting of it, which has more of a waltz-like feel and a tighter meter, and he's added a few features that are really quite beautiful. So Caroline's Cup. I'm so happy to hear that. I'm going to stay up here for a little bit and play a few pieces for you on my own. And I'm going to start out with two that I don't think I've ever played at this festival before. They're new to me in the last couple years. And the first is called, this is a pair of tunes that are both for Caroline's patrons, Mrs. Costello. And I believe the second, Mrs. Maxwell. And the second one in particular has a really sort of Baroque 18th century feel, which I really enjoy playing. The first one I feel like I can hear a little bit more of the old Irish harp tradition in it. So this is Mrs. Costello and Mrs. Maxwell. Thank you so much. I love the drama of that last one. So I'm going to shift over to some of Caroline's more major tunes. I've been really into his minor tunes lately. And this is a pair of tunes that I dearly love because I have played them often with Hillary Farrington and Benedict Culler, who are longtime friends of this festival and dear friends of mine. The first is called Keen O'Hara. It's a tune for one of Caroline's patrons. And then it goes into the setting associated with Caroline. It's called the Two William Davises. And this is in fact a tune that came over from Scotland and it's well known as the classic Scottish tune, Killy Cranky. But it certainly has sort of an Irish flair to it in this setting. And it's played often as a hornpipe. Fran and John, am I right in thinking this was your wedding processional as well? Keen O'Hara. It's one of my favorite tunes. This goes out to the two of you. It's your anniversary. Happy anniversary. This next one is a set that I learned for this festival a number of years back. It begins with a tune called Nancy Cooper. And it has a really close start to the first piece I played. So I have to separate John O'Reilly and Connor O'Reilly. And I've actually had a broken lever on my harp for a number of months which I just fixed in a Zoom call with my harp maker. This is the lever and I'm so excited to have this lever working again. So I couldn't wait to brush this one up. So this is Nancy Cooper, John O'Reilly and Connor O'Reilly. Thank you all so much. I have one last piece to share with you before I know there's some really beautiful Carolyn music coming up and I can't wait to hear it. I have just loved this festival so very much for so many years and I absolutely adore Carolyn and his music and I love this community so much. It's great to be among you again. And this is a very, very special piece to me. This is Mr. O'Connor. It's a piece written for one of Carolyn's many patrons. And it starts out as a sort of, almost has like a minuet feel. It's very sort of classical, broken in nature. And that's a two-part tune. And then it goes into another one of his just delightful 18th century jigs which unlike modern jigs, there'll be a lot of 16th notes in these, the 18th century jigs which are just really fun to play. And this piece actually, this is the piece I warm up with on the harp almost every time I sit down to practice and it is, every time I play it, I find something new to love about it. So I will leave you with Mr. O'Connor. Thank you all so much. How many cards, everybody? Thank you again. And I have a couple of announcements for the next speaker or next musician. I'd like everyone to thank the volunteers today who put this festival together. And we have a bit more before dinner here, we have a speaker and then we have an open stage. We have some performances for you. I want to announce that the 6 o'clock dinner time is a new thing going on which is the Worcester Historical Society is doing a fundraiser. So they provide in the food. Some folks have reservations for their food. They'll go up first. And if you don't, there is more food than reservations so you can also get in line and have something to eat also and pay for it. So that is all out of the way. Give a hand to my dad for putting the festival together. And Elizabeth, of course, and all of you organizing. And there is a Carolyn festival committee that works together all year long. So let's give the committee a hand as well. Now, one of our local treasures, Art Edelstein, back in 2001, wrote this book and it was published Bare Melodies. And it is Terlach Carolyn and Irish Harper. And Art is one of the folks who really has brought Carolyn here to the forefront, not only here in Central Vermont, but also just in the broader, along with my dad and a lot of other folks just bringing this music right to the forefront. Dominic Dodge, everybody here. And Art was ahead of the wave on that, I think. So why don't we give up this stage to Art Edelstein also in the book is and it's for sale here, a CD of his wonderful guitar playing along with a harpist named Tim Newcomb. So, thank you so much. And here's Art. Hello. My banjo playing buddy over here, you know. Making sure that my dulcet Brooklyn accented tones come through. Right? I have a prepared talk. I don't know if I'll use much of it because I tend to be one of these people who as the thought hits, but this is the 30th 30 years ago I had essentially on this date just been home from a trip to Ireland of three weeks where I had taken several cameras a whole suitcase load of film and had gone to photograph Carolyn's Ireland which I thought in my dreams of fame and fortune I would make into a lovely coffee table book of literature and photos of Ireland. Needless to say if you do get the book or whatever you'll find three pictures one on the back and a much younger art Edelstein with hair on the front on the back of the book. Yes, this came out in 2001 and it didn't just get published like that. Let me tell you research in those days before heavy-duty internet was not easy. But since I started looking into the music and I'm saying Carolyn and that's because he would have said Carolyn not oh Carolyn by the way okay so as I look around the room I see some familiar faces but I don't see as many folks I mean John for sure Mr. Paul over there so a lot of you I suspect are somewhat new to both the festival and maybe Carolyn's music which is good as a matter of fact and so we've seen a resurgence of Carolyn's music and interest in Carolyn since those hazy days of the early 1990s when I started on this journey to get into the music Elizabeth asked me to talk about a little bit I think more of the process here of how I got into this than just the life and the reason is there are many ways that you can learn about Carolyn. Yes you can buy the book there's also Donald O'Sullivan's book The Life and Times of an Irish Harper which was the first biography of Carolyn and I used it extensively in my research I'm not only a historian by education I'm also a journalist and that is not the most journalistically written biography it was probably researched in the 30s and 40s and he was an academic I'm pretty sure and so it's a little stiff let's put it that way so when my quest was to find out about Carolyn after getting what happened was I played the music and on guitar primarily and I was playing with some friends we were playing tunes like John Irwin and George Brabazon and Shabeg Shemour now most of the time if you follow Irish music you know that there's no author right no composer it's Morrison's jig maybe it's by Morrison or whatever but this one had a specific composer and I said whoa this is interesting so I said I'll go and I'll look up get a couple of books on him and you know read up on so I know who's music I'm playing well there wasn't much except for the O'Sullivan biography which I had to get for Maine by the way and I found a couple of harp journals from Ireland primarily so I didn't have a lot to go on and I went to Ireland because I wanted a visual of where this man had lived and as we know many of the tunes are for patrons I've written in honor of them and I must tell you that's a good way to make a little extra coin in those days is to write a tune for a rich patron who you hope then will reciprocate with a couple of shillings or more or gifts or whatever because Caroline is a survivor he's not a dilettante he's had he not been blinded he probably would have been just worked at the forge which is where his father what his father did so here's an instance of debilitating illness which is smallpox which makes him blind turns into his way of making his way in the world so what I saw when I went to Ireland was that many of the places that you would think would be famous beautiful houses of the rich in Ireland were frankly dumps and that's primarily because it's a long time ago I mean this is the two he's been gone for 285 years alright so in the late 1600s and early 1700s these would have been pretty nice houses but by 1993 most of the people who lived in these houses were poor farmers so I was kind of shocked at what I saw and it kind of had an effect on me of trying to understand recreating from something that was very not really what I expected to see but over the years of collecting information and listening to music which by the way when I started now you can go I mean I have a discography and you can find those CDs or you can look online you can type it you can Google O'Carillon and you'll get pages of books pages of books whole lists of CDs you can go on Spotify I wonder what O'Carillon will find YouTube music Apple music he's everywhere well there was almost no internet in 1993 and there were not a lot of recordings the first one with Cown's music is Sean O'Reeter and Kulturi Kulan it's the music of the nobles 1967 on Gayle Lynn records an LP remember those and then there's a couple by Derek Bell who was the harper and a keyboard I believe he played with the chieftains and he's in the book by the way I interviewed him for it and then we have Patrick Ball how many of you have heard of Patrick well of course you have Patrick Ball who is a Californian who really did a lot to I think get this music going as a matter of fact there was a review of an album by Patrick Ball that I read in some music publication that got me to go that's it so I'm a journalist I'm looking for a book project and this obscure Irish composer starts invading my psyche here so that's why that's why I got into it and that's why I went and did as much research as I could do with the limited resources first of all I don't speak Gaelic and I don't read Gaelic so that cuts out a lot of material from the early 1700s in Ireland and so I didn't have a lot to go on except a couple of substantial books of history and then O'Sullivan what I try to do and if you're interested there are several copies of Fair Melodies which by the way the title of the book comes from an editor at Acoustic Guitar magazine I submitted an arrangement of George Brabazon for Acoustic Guitar and by the way in a strange tuning Open G tuning and she gave the title Fair Melodies music by Turley Carroll and that's how I got the title for the book I said yeah that works for me so you have the benefit even if you're just jumping on the Carroll train how many of you were new to this music a couple of you yeah it doesn't sound like Planksty music by the way Planksty which is an Irish band from the 70s so Planksty I see listings of the tunes and Planksty this and Planksty that and I've heard people say this and that Planksty is just a jumble sounds it doesn't mean anything by the way as far as my research could go on that so we're very lucky the Carroll train really moved along fast especially starting in the 90s my wife and I in a disagreement I said it took until maybe 95-96 a fair amount of music you know how things snowball especially in the world of music and as more and more CDs and more and more internet more and more musicians here you are here I am we get into this it's different it's not the jigs and reels of the Planksty name whatever Irish band you want at the point this year two of my music friends Steve Baufman out in California an incredible guitarist did a whole album of Carroll and Music and Simon Mayer an off the off the wall mandolin player I mean he's just gorgeous from England did a Carroll and Album and he explores it almost gets into a I want to say a jazzish mode improv along with the melody because he plays mandolin, fiddle, guitar mandola you name it they're still going these so it's moving along it's at a level now of sustainability on its own that is the music which is essentially what we're here for to listen to the music if I can if I I mean keep going or one more minute one more minute alright see I wrote all this stuff out and I didn't need any of it this is the intro who knew so we're there your job as audience and as musician is to seek this out there's all sorts of music I just saw the other day I don't know if you're familiar with bandcamp.com there's a guitar player now who's just released a new album on Bandcamp that I saw for the first time it's everywhere much of it stays to the kind of the traditional sound but they're moving off into a variety of areas here before I forget so I will use this to make sure I get this right we want to it's too bad if anybody here for the first time at this festival it's too bad that it did rain today it's good that they had the foresight John and Fran and Elizabeth to say we're not going to do this outside but you missed a wonderful very Vermont thing which is outdoor concerts and it was a lovely thing and they had Sunshine for how many of the years 14 years or something they put it on 13 this is the 14th year I wasn't sure it started in 2007 I was one of the originals along with John and Fran and they set it up to be on their anniversary essentially so you you missed that but it's we really have John where is Fran she's oh I see thank you John well the Mallories for providing space and Elizabeth Schwartz who's over there who I must the woman is so organized it's the most how organized she is and I have to tell you and then I will basically be done but I wanted to say I've performed locally at restaurants and stuff playing a lot of Carolyn music and you know people eat mostly at those events I never had a groupie until I met Elizabeth who like fell in love with the music and you know something to do with getting her interest in it but that was pretty amazing so to leave you I want to say that although this festival is as at its end I think you've made friends among with you know people you never would have met any other way probably from different states we have folks here from New Hamster sorry New Hampshire and other parts of I assume New England Quebec right well there's the folks I just met today from Montreal with a woman with a very nice voice etc so you've made friends you probably have learned a whole lot your musicianship if you've been doing this for a while it's probably going just like that and we have to thank and obscure Irish blind Irish traveling musician who I'm sure if there is a heaven I'm a skeptic if there is a heaven is saying whoa what happened here so with that I want to just thank again the Mallory's Elizabeth and all of you wonderful people who have come to these festivals and are hopefully to carry on the tradition with you so with that I will bid you a fond adieu thank you Art, Art Edelstein everybody fair melodies if you buy it now you can get an autograph uh huh uh huh so we have here on this clipboard the next round of performances and so buckle your seatbelts first on our list we have are you ready Yazzie and Lulee, Zygner and we are missing the third the uh the brother who has moved to Hawaii remind me of his name Oliver is in Hawaii so you could just do with that what you want oh it is on there we go yeah it's great to be back at the festival um thank you Elizabeth invites us to come every year and we are always delighted to come and usually yes we are here with our brother but he has deserted us for warmer climate um we are going to play for you a piece that we learned a few years ago for the O'Carrollen festival so you may have heard us play it before and it's been in my head all these years as O'Carrollen's rambles through casual but then I looked it up recently and it's actually O'Carrollen's ramble only one ramble two casual not through casual so O'Carrollen's ramble two casual it's a beautiful minor kind of rambling piece of course um so here you go O'Carrollen's rambles to casual check check oh thank you and next Andrea are you ready one of our long time O'Carrollen uh not only uh players but also teachers and dance uh instructors uh bringing something very special today so it is really nice honestly to see all these faces again folks that it's it's been a few years so welcome back to the O'Carrollen festival and um Andrea is on her way up after Mary will be uh Bob and Mary Paul okay thank you I'm going to take a minute in this gap to say um that uh we're working very hard on having uh further Carolina festivals around the northeast region um we're hoping that we can arrange at least one of them in the upper valley of New Hampshire um which may change the the Vermont flavor a little bit but we think we belong here too sorry for the delay we don't have much because some people had to leave um this was a suggestion that Elizabeth came up with and I'm helping with I just want to be sure someone is still here this is a tribute to someone who's new this year and um at the workshop this was a tune that I learned it was a tune suggested by Elizabeth so we need to have the person here here to do that I have a little lift in I'm really I'm hot oh maybe it's still on a chair back here are you joining us on this also are you joining us on this do you have your heart alright okay this better be good right after all of this are we ready whoops someone else who gets really hot these little neck fans are wonderful they blow up on upward run on a battery and I'm always very hot so this will get me through the concert quite nicely oh we need you to be visible okay I'll be visible this is to welcome you to um the carolin festival the young players you're working with and the various folk things you do and I understand your father's name is John is that correct so this morning or whoops early afternoon in the workshop that I had there were 25 to 30 players and we um we learned the landlady and John Drury second year I knew that um the first year was played quite a lot the second year is not even in the festival book yet but maybe this will bump it up a notch so Elizabeth and I thought that would be a nice tribute to welcome you um they probably had 20 minutes or so to learn it so um and some of the group already had to leave unfortunately but here we are twice through one two three one two three and the audience either didn't have instruments or were quite sure they were ready to do this but maybe another year um yes I'm I'm usually solo because I'm coming up from Boston and seems like a long way to go although we play a lot of carolin down there um and this year I'd hoped to have guitar but that didn't quite work out so I'm on my own and according to my checking in with Elizabeth I believe a couple of these tunes have never been played here so this is um this is a debut and I actually could use some water too if anyone could bring me if I may real quick I just want to thank you for playing that and this has been a treat for me I grew up not very far from here and um my father John Drury and my mom Martha Pellerin um were both in family bands and I was really nice to see Kenrick and Grant and Art who played music in my kitchen when I was growing up and are all part of really forming a part of who I am and inspiring me to continue to play traditional music so it's been very sweet to reconnect with you guys and be here today and hear you all play and dance for having me hopefully I can sound as good as the students I had today I'm recovering still from some hand surgery so this tune is called William Ward and um I know in Art Edelstein's book he listed all the possible recordings he could find of various tunes and two of these either have never been recorded or maybe one person had recorded it at the time this one is called William Ward and my grandmother was Lula May Ward so I thought someday I should learn a war tune so this is it and it sounds better on a wooden flute but I can't get the holes covered right now no the hot baby and it's still going on so I have my band this next one I think someone mentioned before in talking about Carolyn's Welcome there are a bunch of Carolyn tunes that don't actually have a title if they did we don't know who they might have been written for or why so this is one of the numbered ones and I believe those are not played much either and it's perfect for this hot day because it's about a winter day I was hoping that would cool me off I'm thinking of the rain falling softly on your fields in Ireland but this is snow falling softly I only knew it as number 176 and a few months ago I heard it on a recording by a quadriga concert Renaissance music and it was called Music for a Cold Winter Day number 176, Carolyn so I think it evokes kind of a quiet the snow coming down and there's a cozy fire in the fireplace this one is another William Ward was the first one I played and this is another one that struck my fancy and I realized barely recorded barely played and it's a lovely tune and so this is William Echols that's one of the few E's to be in the directory of alphabetical listings here is one I think played once here Captain Higgins who also happens to be a William or happen to be a William so three Williams and I know Dominique played two William Davis's that was a different one because one William Davis was a really nice guy and the other one wasn't at all I have no idea how all of my Williams were but anyway this is Captain Higgins and at the end everyone's tunes he's added on a jig that's almost like an ending or a coda to the tune so that's what happens at the end of this Andrea Maury and next up we have on the Hammer Delcimer this is Bob Paul let's give a hand to Bob I don't think I remember a Carolyn festival that I didn't see Bob and Mary here so they've been here key members of the Angel Band and the CDs that that band produced are fantastic I don't think there are any on the table but I do believe that Bob and Mary can get you some so I know they're going to get me some and when Bob finishes his lovely partner Mary will come up and they'll play together okay here I am I'm going to do two tunes and then Mary's going to come join me this first tune is called Carolyn's Receipts sometimes people call it Carolyn's Receipt for Drinking one thing I found interesting about the Delcimer Hammer Delcimer is that it seems to work for Carolyn music pretty well and I tried to figure it out for a long time and then we finally figured out that it's because Carolyn played on a wire strung harp whereas people today play nylon mostly and the wire strung harp is a lot of sustain and the the low end of it, the accompaniment was therefore very sparse so that it wouldn't get too muddy so this Delcimer does the same kind of thing and so it's like well that's interesting maybe I play closer to the way he played than a lot of harp players do but we'll find out that may be just all my imagination alright the next tune is Robert Jordan one thing about Carolyn's music is it's very versatile for a lot of things and this one sounds like it's meant for a soundtrack for a western movie this is also the key of A which is kind of unusual for Carolyn music Robert Jordan so you gotta be the key that's ready for Miss Noble you gotta be ready for Miss Noble okay this is the next tune first tune is Mabel Kelly which we decided to melk it for all it's worth and see what happens just focusing on the melody alone and it's kind of like a Gregorian chant but it's kind of the old kind of harks back to old music as opposed to the Baroque and all that classical stuff this will be our last tune I'm honored to say this tune we record it and it found extended airplay on our local college radio station as a background music to a public service announcement for several years it's a pleasure to hear it Carolyn's Welcome which is got its name when the Pope John the 23rd arrived in Ireland and kissed the ground and the chieftains were there to greet him and they played this tune and ever since then it's been called Carolyn's Welcome number 171 in the O'Sullivan book two, three, one well I have one more group to introduce to you tonight and so this last tune before dinner will be performed by my dad John Mallory and Fran his lovely spouse also accompanied by Phil Kirk and Grant Orenstein okay that's John Fan and that does conclude the official performances for today so thank you so much for being here at the 14th annual Carolyn Festival so I will be hitting the road thank you so much for being here and it was so lovely to see you again