Torrin Ryan, “Uilleann Piping from the ‘Boros” • Among the many assets of the Greater Boston/Eastern Massachusetts Celtic music scene is its vibrant uilleann pipes community, personified by the Boston Uilleann Pipers Club, of whom Attleboro native Ryan is an active and quite accomplished member: five Senior All-Ireland Fleadh medals to go with more than a dozen Mid-Atlantic Fleadh first-place medals, and a scholarship award by Dublin-based Na Píobairí Uilleann (the Society of Uilleann Pipers), the flagship organization for uilleann pipers. 

Additionally, he’s taken on leadership and educational roles, having served as an instructor at the Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann Boston Music School and a member of the board for the annual Northeast Uilleann Pipers Tionól event, and taught Irish music and history through the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program. More to the point, Ryan – also a talent on flute and whistle – has long been a regular presence at sessions in and around Boston, helping to keep this uniquely Irish instrument in the public eye, and ear. 

“Uilleann Piping from the ‘Boros” is a solo album in every sense: In addition to handling all the recording and production work, Ryan also created the cover art. He presents it as a “snapshot” summing up the importance of Irish music in his life, and his gratitude to the sources (historical and human) that informed his development as a piper. 

The 14 tracks showcase the pipes in numerous tune classifications – reels, jigs, marches, hornpipes, slow airs, polkas, a planxty and others categorized as “pieces.” The more up-tempo material, like the reel sets (“Port Na Giobóge/West Clare Railway,” “Hare’s Paw/Donald Blue/Bag of Spuds”) and jig medleys (“Gobby-O/Sergeant Early’s,” which are preceded by the planxty “Charles O’Connor,” and the slip jig/jig “Am Faca Sibh Màiri/Is the Big Man Within?”) amply displays Ryan’s dexterity and precision, especially on the pipes’ regulators – keys on the drone pipes that when pressed provide harmonies, chords and rhythm. 

Slower tunes are where ornamentation is especially prominent for pipes, and on the airs “The Bright Lady” and “Banks of Suir,” Ryan skillfully illustrates the staccato effect known as cranning and to “bend” notes – sliding between them in such a way as to create a microtonal effect. He also demonstrates a delightfully nimble touch, along with good judgment and discipline as regards tempo, on hornpipes (“An Páistín Fonn/Byrne’s” and “Callaghan’s/Fairies”).

Another highlight is the pairing of the O’Carolan tune “Morgan Magan” with “Pride of Petrovore,” a traditional hornpipe that has taken on another dimension as the melody used for Percy French’s comic song “Eileen Oge” (covered by, among others, De Danann and more recently Lankum) – by dint of that association, “Petrovore” has taken on a veneer of humorous bombast, an entertaining contrast to the regal but winsome “Magan.”

Every musical instrument has its unique degree of difficulty, obviously, but to an average observer, playing the uilleann pipes seems an exercise in extreme multitasking: keeping that bellows going to inflate the bag while staying aware of when you need to lift the chanter off your knee and operating the regulators, too (the potential consequences of being out of synch on the pipes, wrote piper Tim Cummings, “could be mistaken for a goose being strangled in a traffic jam”). Someone like Ryan who can do all that and make such exceptional music on the dang thing is deserving of respect and attention – and since he’s only on the cusp of 30, he should be getting his fair share for quite some time to come.

 Nuala Kennedy and Eamon O’Leary, “Hydra” • Individually or collectively, solo or in collaboration, Kennedy and O’Leary have been among the more refreshing, as well as proficient, singers in the Irish/Celtic domain for more than a decade. Devotees of traditional song, they’re equally adept as songwriters, and do quite well as instrumentalists, too. Having released two albums with John Doyle in their trio The Alt, “Hydra” is Kennedy and O’Leary’s first as a duo, and it shines in every aspect, from selection and diversity of material to arrangement to performance – most of all by their voices but also their respective instruments (Kennedy on flute and whistle, O’Leary on bouzouki and guitar).

Three tracks are drawn from “Songs of the People, “Sam Henry’s deservedly praised immense collection of mainly Northern Irish ballads and songs. “The Dark-Eyed Gypsy” – a variant of “Raggle Taggle Gypsies”/ “Black Jack Davey” et al, the ballad associated with Leo Maguire’s popular “Whistling Gypsy Rover” – is based on a version from longtime Boys of the Lough member Cathal McConnell; “Bonny Green Tree” is one of those jaunty, major-key trad love songs which nonetheless does not follow the they-lived-happily-ever-after script; and – by contrast – “Dark-eyed Sailor,” a broken-token ballad. O’Leary leads on all three with Kennedy joining the chorus, his mellow, affable bass so well matched with Kennedy’s inviting, sweet high tones.

Kennedy leads on the (literally) haunting “Willie-O,” from the lover’s-ghost-pays-a-visit genre, punctuated by an appropriately somber yet elegant instrumental at the end in which she’s joined by fiddler Liz Knowles (also guest-starring on the album is mandolinist Brian Mac Gloinn). She solos on “Bruach Dhún Réimhe,” an 18th-century Gaelic-language song by Art MacCumhaigh.

Their full duets are enthralling, perhaps none more so than “I Will Hang My Harp on a Willow Tree,” sourced from Newfoundland singer Anita Best and also found in John Ord’s collection. It’s powerful in terms of emotional resonance and vivid lyrics, to say nothing of narrative: a lament by a forsaken would-be lover on the prospect of seeing his object of affection married before he goes off to war, with a memorable coda: “And if by some Saracen’s hand I fall/Mid the noble and the brave/A tear from the lady I love is all/I will ask for a warrior’s grave.”

Also of note is an O’Leary original, “As We Rove Out,” which repurposes some trad lyrics tropes in a clever, whimsical and altogether infectious way, and two instrumental tracks, one of them featuring a modern-day Breton tune.

Capping the album is the sweet-souled, unabashedly romantic “Liffeyside,” learned from the aforementioned McConnell (it’s worth reading the album’s sleeve notes for details about his source for the song, Delia Murphy), who lends his voice on the chorus along with Anais Mitchell and Will Oldham. Perhaps it’s not too fanciful to consider “Liffeyside” and the rest of “Hydra” as Kennedy and O’Leary’s valentine to the whole art and craft of song, and the many emotional and spiritual roads on which it leads us.