House Concert with 
Tom Sweeney, Irish singer

Friday, November 22, 2002 7:30 p.m.
At the home of Kate and Jeff Akers in Columbia. Directions provided when you make your reservation.

RESERVATIONS REQUIRED
admission: $12 in advance or at the door. Kids 14 & under attend free, as always, but they do need a reservation.

Listen:
MP3: The Lovely River Finn (900K)
 MP3: The Homes of Donegal (400K)

TOM SWEENEY is one of the finest Irish ballad singers/entertainers in the Celtic genre. Steeped in the great heritage of the oral folk tradition, Tom carries on an unbroken line of family singers going back over 100 years. Many of the songs in his extensive repertoire come directly from the singing of his grandmother, mother, uncles and other family members who have gone before.

Tom's maternal grandmother, the late Sarah Makem, is regarded far and wide as the First Lady of Irish traditional song and it was from her that Tom inherited his unique gift of song, story and repartee. In rural Irish communities of past times, it fell on certain families to store and preserve the musical traditions of the area - Tom's family was one of these and it is from this rich and time honoured source of music that the man's boundless talent derives.

Folk music is an ongoing and ever evolving tradition and it is to Tom's credit that he keeps apace with the songs and events taking place in the Ireland of today, always making the audience aware of a song's proper place in the history of his country. This is, perhaps, one of the key elements in any Sweeney performance, to find yourself listening to a two hundred year old song followed immediately by one written last week. Numerous critics have heaped praise on Tom's spoken introductions, always thoroughly researched, often uproariously funny and regularly given in the form of a poem from one of the many verses he carries around in his head. Indeed one writer in Chicago said that Padraic Colum's famous line...

"...and still they sat, and still the wonder grew
how one small head could carry all he knew..."

could have been written with Sweeney in mind! His encyclopedic knowledge is legendary among his fellow performers. An evening with Tom Sweeney will take you on a roller coaster ride of human emotions ranging from heartbreaking ballads to hilarious songs and stories of Ireland and its people. And you can sense immediately the deep respect he has for his material and his audience making the two inextricably linked.