Irish Ceili dance tomorrow,  Friday, April 14

Irish folk dancing for all ages and abilities. No partner and no experience necessary.

7:00 p.m. - beginners' lesson
7:30 dancing begins
Live music!   Brian Hart (concertina) and Tim Langen (fiddle)
Dances will be taught and called by Christine Harker

First Christian Church, corner of Tenth and Walnut Streets in Columbia. Park and enter through the north side of the building.
If you don't want to dance, you can just come and enjoy the music and the company!

Admission: $5 for adults, ages 16 & under admitted free.

More info about our dances

Celtic Book Club News
Next meeting for the Celtic-themed CMCAA book club is
MONDAY, APRIL 24, 6:00 pm, Cherry Street Artisan

E. Annie Proulx, The Shipping News (Scribner, 1994)

From Publishers Weekly
Proulx has followed Postcards, her story of a family and their farm, with an extraordinary second novel of another family and the sea. The fulcrum is Quoyle, a patient, self-deprecating, oversized hack writer who, following the deaths of nasty parents and a succubus of a wife, moves with his two daughters and straight-thinking aunt back to the ancestral manse in Killick-Claw, a Newfoundland harbor town of no great distinction. There, Quoyle finds a job writing about car crashes and the shipping news for The Gammy Bird, a local paper kept afloat largely by reports of sexual abuse cases and comical typographical errors. Killick-Claw may not be perfect, but it is a stable enough community for Quoyle and Co. to recover from the terrors of their past lives. But the novel is much more than Quoyle's story: it is a moving evocation of a place and people buffeted by nature and change. Proulx routinely does without nouns and conjunctions--"Quoyle, grinning. Expected to hear they were having a kid. Already picked himself for godfather"--but her terse prose seems perfectly at home on the rocky Newfoundland coast. She is in her element both when creating haunting images (such as Quoyle's inbred, mad and mean forbears pulling their house across the ice after being ostracized by more God-fearing folk) and when lyrically rendering a routine of gray, cold days filled with cold cheeks, squidburgers, fried bologna and the sea.

For more info, see http://moceltic.org/book-club.html or contact Erin Clair, eccvwf@mizzou.edu

Folk music concert Saturday May 6

Local musical heroines Leela and Ellie Grace will perform together on Saturday, May 6th at Unity Center of Columbia. Their music is a wonderful mix of traditional and original, old-time and contemporary.  With banjo, mandolin, fiddle and guitar at hand, they perform old-timey tunes and songs, do Appalachian clogging and Irish step dancing, plus they are gifted songwriters who have an inspired way with words and music.

Date: Saturday, May 6th
Time: 8 p.m.
Location: Unity Center of Columbia, 1600 W Broadway
For More Info: leela@gracefamilymusic.com OR ellie@gracefamilymusic.com;
www.gracefamilymusic.com

Mark your calendar!

Concert - Chulrua, May 21
7:00 p.m., Unity Center of Columbia
1600 W. Broadway
$12 adults / $10 CMCAA members / $5 ages 6 - 16

About Chulrua:

Button accordion player Paddy O'Brien, a native of County Offaly, is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant to record and annotate 500 dance tunes (a small fraction of his repertoire), and is revered by lovers of Irish traditional music around the world. Paddy has the ability to distill the essence of Ireland, and pour out a full measure through his accordion. Patrick Ourceau, a fiddler of rare talent and sophistication, cut his teeth in sessions in his native Paris, but eventually was drawn to the musical dialects of Clare and East Galway.. The intertwining of button accordion and fiddle is arguably the loveliest sound in Irish traditional music. It is perfectly complimented by the deft and delicate guitar playing of Tipperary native Pat Egan.  His smooth baritone does full justice to these well chosen songs. Listen to Chulrua, and you’ll think you’ve traveled to Ireland, or heaven; it is really much the same thing.

April 24 - 1916 Commemorative concert, St. Louis

Location: The Missouri Athletic Club, 405 Washington Ave, St. Louis
cash bar opens at 7 p.m., concert begins at 8 p.m.
This event will mark the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising.
Musicians: The Irish Xiles and Eileen Gannon
http://www.1916concert.info/

Southern Illinois Irish Festival, (Carbondale)
April 28-29

www.silirishfest.org

Highlights of the festival:
There will be a music session Friday night at The Mississippi Flyway (west end of the strip mall as you come into town from Murphysboro)

Teada (www.teada.com) will be performing Saturday at 2:00 p..m. during the festival, and they will be the featured band at the evening concert. Tickets are expected to sell out, so it would be advisable to purchase them in advance at the festival web site.

Other performers include:
   St. Louis Irish Arts
   Duddy Breeks
   The Dorians
   Faileas
   The Kells
   Brendan Nolan

Suggested accommodations if you are going for the weekend:
America's Best Value Inn, 128 E. Walnut, 618-687-2244 (1-800-800-8000)
Comfort Inn, 1415 E. Main, 618-549-4244
Hampton Inn, 2175 Reed Station Parkway (further east out of town, but nicest place), 618-549-6900
Ramada Limited, 801 N. Giant City Road, 618-351-6611

Or for more rustic lodging in the state park, there's the Giant City Lodge cabins at Giant City State Park about 20 minutes south of Carbondale, at 866-268-5966.  They tend to fill up well in advance.

Musicky Stuff For sale

Brian Hart, Irish musician from St. Louis has the following items for sale. If you are interested in any of them, please contact him directly.   ohairt@yahoo.com

1.  Frank Edgley 30-key C/G anglo-concertina.  Rosewood, German Silver ends, re-enforced hardcase  $2200.00  
www.concertinas.ca/

2.  Paddy Clancy (of Cairdin Workshop) B/C button accordion.  Maple wood, Celtic-hounds wooden grill, hardcase  $2500.00
http://www.cairdin.net/ 

3.  Sony MZ-10 Net Minidisc Recorder.  Silver with armband carrying case, USB cable, headphones with attached control panel, dock and charger.  $150.00
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00008WIX2/104-6977840-6423119?v=glance&n=172282

Local and Regional Celtic Events Calendar
All local and regional events that I hear about get posted on the web calendar here:
http://moceltic.org/calendar.html

It's updated frequently, so please check often. If you hear of an event, send me a note, because I might not already know!
kakers@moceltic.org

Note --  There is a new web site for all things Irish in St. Louis:
http://www.irishinstlouis.com/index2.html

Irish set dancing occurs at two locations in Columbia every week, one group meets on Tuesday evenings and the other meets on Wednesday evenings.  You can contact Kat Difoxfire 573-214-2102 or Rune Sharp 573-875-4836 for more information.

Irish music slow jam occurs every Wednesday evening from 7:30 - 9. Contact Sherry Borcherding at borcherdings@health.missouri.edu for more information.

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