Arts and Entertainment
This past February, the movie “Till” was screened at the White House for President Biden, First Lady Jill Biden, and their guests. Among the team that brought the powerful true story of Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, to the president’s... Read more
During my long and rich teaching career (1984-2019) at UMass Boston, I had the rare good fortune of being able to offer, multiple times—both as a graduate seminar and as an undergraduate senior seminar—a course centered on Irish Nobel Laureate Seamus... Read more
Courtney O’Connor has a solid history in the Boston theater community as a director, educator and arts administrator. Having directed several shows at the Lyric Stage Company of Boston over the years, she joined the full-time staff at Lyric in 2018 and... Read more
Here's R.J.Donovan's preview of what's on in Boston's theatrical world for the summer of 2023
“Jagged Little Pill”, “Clue”, “Rooted”, “Oklahoma!”
“The Normal Heart”, “Evita”, “A Man of No Importance”,
“The Lehman Trilogy”, “Oppenheimer”
Editor's Note: The... Read more
By R. J. DonovanSpecial to Boston Irish
Courtney O’Connor has a solid history in the Boston theater community as a Director, Educator and Arts Administrator. Having directed several shows at The Lyric Stage Company of Boston over the years, she joined... Read more
Reviving a tradition of summertime musical extravaganzas, the Irish Cultural Centre of Greater Boston in Canton will present “Sounds of Summer” on June 17, with several hours of entertainment from three acts that have longstanding ties with the center:
•... Read more
A look at some upcoming Irish/Celtic events in Greater Boston:
• UPDATE: The US tour of Frankie Gavin and Catherine McHugh has been postponed to a later date. Anybody with a passing interest in Irish traditional music over the past, oh, five decades knows... Read more
Next up at SpeakEasy Stage is the Boston premiere of the funny, feel-good, musical with a message, “The Prom.” With music by Mathew Sklar, lyrics by Chad Beguelin, and a book by Beguelin and Bob Martin, “The Prom” tells the story of Emma, a student in a... Read more
It’s not just a concert/album launch, it’s a homecoming.
Fiddler Doug Lamey, a Boston-area native and a denizen of its Celtic music and dance community – particularly that of Cape Breton – for a number of years, will be at the Burren Backroom in... Read more
Emerging from the Covid-19 pause, Boston-area Celtic fiddler Hanneke Cassel felt she had a lot of unfinished business – musical and personal.
Going into 2020, she’d had plans to work on a new album featuring tunes she’d written since her 2017 release, “... Read more
A look at some upcoming Irish/Celtic-related music events in Greater Boston (and perhaps a little farther afield):
•You can read elsewhere in the BostonIrish entertainment section about local fiddler Hanneke Cassel’s May 12 appearance at the Second... Read more
It had all the trappings of a feel-good Christmas story.
Last December, Boston-area resident Hilaryann Gray suffered a rare, sudden form of heart failure for which there was only one recourse: a heart transplant. On Christmas Eve, Gray received a new... Read more
2023 is a landmark year for Boston-area quintet Scottish Fish, which is commemorating its first decade as one of the most energetic and creative acts to take root in the local Celtic music scene this century.
After releasing its second full-length album... Read more
You might think that after its busiest March in years, the Greater Boston Irish/Celtic music scene would collectively put its feet up and take a breather. Wrong. There’s plenty to enjoy in April, too.
•The Le Vent du Nord concert (part of the Global Arts... Read more
John Carty and Michael McGoldrick, “At Our Leisure” • Leisure, indeed. It took the better part of eight years for these esteemed gentlemen to put on record a collaboration that started with their appearance in a special ensemble at a 2014 Royal Albert... Read more
There are fiddle duet albums, and then there are magnum opus-level fiddle duet albums.
On “Brightly or Darkly,” the second recording by Boston-area musicians Nathan Gourley and Laura Feddersen, their fiddles sync up together, sometimes harmonize, play... Read more
Two very special productions are onstage this month at the Irish Repertory Theatre in New York. Both have connections offering interest to Boston audiences. Manhattan is easily accessible as a day trip or a quick overnight theater visit via Amtrak. And... Read more
Damon Leibert, a former Boston-area resident now living in Maine, has quite the resumé: a fiddler in Irish bands that performed at beloved local venues like Tir Na nOg and The Skellig; the driving force behind the rebirth of Somerville’s Davis Square... Read more
Her stay in the Boston area was a relatively brief one, but the area’s folk/traditional music scene made an impression on Vermont fiddler-vocalist Lissa Schneckenburger, and she returned the favor.
The Maine native came to town in the late 1990s as a... Read more
Karan Casey admits it: She was nervous.
Yes, she’s been performing for decades in front of audiences big and small, in her native Ireland, the UK, the US, and many other places. But at January’s Celtic Connections in Glasgow – one of the premier Celtic... Read more
