|
The Ark
12/19/2009 7:30 PM at Crossroads Ceili featuring Ashley MacIsaac
316 S. Main St., Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104
Cost: $15
The Ark’s annual Crossroads Ceili is a great way to mark the turning of the year. It’s a gathering of local Irish music singers, instrumentalists, and dancers, all sharing the stage with a nationally known headliner. If you’d like to get an idea of the depth of southeastern Michigan’s Irish music scene, which starts with the still Irish neighborhood of Corktown in Detroit and radiates out to the farthest corners of the area, the Ceili is a fine place to do it over two nights of dance and song. Headlining the Ceili is Cape Breton fiddler Ashley MacIsaac, a close cousin to Natalie MacMaster and a more distant one to Jack White. This unpredictable artist has recorded everything from punk to metal to classical minimalism to top-40 Canadian folk-pop, but he’s also a superb traditional player whose classic 1993 album "A Cape Breton Christmas" has just been reissued. This year’s local performers include 17-year-old harpist Siobhan McKinney, who has appeared at The Ark as a guest with Finvarra’s Wren and teaches harp at the Gaelic League in Detroit, and fiddler Kelsey Lutz, who has won numerous medals around the Midwest and in Ireland and was a featured performer at the Goderich Festival in Ontario in 2007.
|