Back from the Emerald Isle

Bouzouki player Ehud Nathan is bringing a couple of Irish music stalwarts to Israel next week, possibly kickstarting a revival of local interest in the genre.

By BARRY DAVIS
Bouzouki player Ehud Nathan 521 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Bouzouki player Ehud Nathan 521
(photo credit: Courtesy)
A few years back, Irish music was all the rage here. There was a well-attended annual Irish music festival at the Tel Aviv Festival, and other events and gigs were dotted around the calendar and country. Then, as is the way with fads, the momentum slowed, the festival ended, and now there is only sporadic Celtic music entertainment available, at events such as at the Jacob’s Ladder Festival.
However, one local individual started playing Irish music long before it came into fashion here and is still going strong – Kiryat Tivon-based bouzouki player Ehud Nathan, who is bringing a couple of stalwarts of the scene over from Ireland next week.
The Celtic gents in question are uilleann pipes player Gabriel (Gay) McKeown and fiddler Liam O’Connor. They will be sharing a stage with Nathan and percussionist Nadav Gayman at the Enav Center in Tel Aviv on Thursday (9 p.m.), and at the Yellow Submarine in Jerusalem on Friday (9 p.m.).
This is the first time in quite a while that such a class act has been here from Ireland and it isn’t a bad way to, possibly, kickstart a revival of interest in Celtic music.
McKeown is one of the pillars of the Celtic music community in Dublin, involved with Na Píobairí Uilleann (The Uilleann Pipers) association there. This will be his first visit to Israel, but he says he is aware of the interest in Irish music here.
“I believe there are 13 or 14 uilleann pipers in Israel, which is quite astonishing. Actually, I was due to play in Israel a few years ago but, u n f o r t u - nately, it didn’t work out at the time. So I am delighted it’s happening now.”
Many Irish musicians take up an interest in some instrument or other due to a strong family link with the discipline through several generations. Although both McKeown’s sons are pipers, like their dad, McKeown Sr.’s parents were not musicians themselves.
“There was no music in my family at all, but my father once heard a very famous uilleann piper called Leo Rowsone. My father fell in love with the pipes and kind of befriended Leo, and when I was young I went to meet him and he asked me if I wanted to play the pipes.”
At the time, McKeown’s musical education was heading in a very different direction.
“I was playing the piano, but I really loved the sound of the pipes. I’d had several piano teachers – I think I was the problem, not the teachers – and it gave me a good grounding before I started learning the pipes with Leo.
“I started learning with Leo four years before he died, and I was lucky to learn with one of the great masters of the uilleann pipes.”
McKeown soon made up for lost time and, partly through the pipers’ association in Dublin, he heard many of the icons of Celtic music of the time.
“People came from all over Ireland to play at the association, so I got to hear them all. Leo Rowsone was very famous, so a lot of people used to come to play with him.”
That also gave McKeown the opportunity to hear music played in the different styles that originated in various parts of the country.
Still, he did have some peer pressure to contend with as a youngster.
“The pop culture got stronger in Ireland back then, and people looked to Britain and beyond, so that people who played traditional Irish music were almost looked down on. I felt that as a kid.”
That eventually changed for the better.
“I think it was around the late Seventies, with the advent of bands like The Chieftains and the Bothy Band, that the music became more popular among young people, and they started appreciating Irish music players again.
“Then, in the Nineties, with things like Riverdance, the popularity grew even more. It got it into the mainstream, and at least it got people listening to the music, and they heard the sound of the uilleann pipes.”
Joining forces with musicians from other disciplines also helps to spread the word about Irish music.
“I have played with different kinds of musicians from a very young age, including English folk musicians like [Steeleye Span vocalist] Maddy Prior and Martin Carthy. I’ve done different things, but I have always had a preference for playing solo pipes, though I don’t do that exclusively.”
According to McKeown, his line of business is in the pink.
“We’ve got members of our [pipers’] association in over 40 countries, so it is really growing.
In the late Sixties, there were less than 100 uilleann pipers in the world, and they were all aged 50- plus. Now that has all changed and many people are captivated by the sound of the pipes.”
That, presumably, will be the case at McKeown’s and O’Connors’s gigs here next week, with Nathan and Gayman. And, hopefully, there will be plenty more where that came from.
More information and tickets: (03) 604-5000 or *8965 and www.tkts.co.il http://www.tkts.co.il