From the promise of great pasta…
image by John D. Kelly
Last year having attended a show at the Clonmel Junction Festival I went to Bakers Bar for a pint with some friends. Entering the beer garden I had the wonderful surprise of meeting Dave Boyd, an old friend whom I had not seen in over twenty years. From his active and engaging social media I was aware that he was living in Portugal, but had missed the bit about him coming to Clonmel to compose the soundscape for a theatre project. We reconnected and reminisced over a couple of pints and said goodbye.
Some weeks later, I received an intriguing email from Dave asking if I was interested in working with him on a musical collaboration, that would bring Italian Tarantella musicians together with Irish Trad players to create a new show. The timing of the offer was opportune, as I had recently finished a six year contract as Festival Advisor to the Arts Council and was looking around for what to do next. I also love both Trad and Tarantella, and was intrigued by the prospect of hearing them played in concert. That Dave also promised the project would include “the best pasta you’ve ever tasted” and “a trip to Calabria”. This tipped the scales and I wrote back to ask him to tell me more.
Over the coming weeks and months, I learned that Dave and his musician friend Andrea Piccioni had been talking about this idea for over ten years. Both Dave and Andrea are master percussionists. During Covid they had spent time working together online, overlaying Trad bodhrán beats onto Tarantella tracks and weaving Tarantella rhythms into Trad tunes. The big question… and excitement driving the project, was how the concept would work when the melody players met.
In the weeks after the fateful email form Dave a plan of action took shape. Andrea was to look after finding the Italian musicians and concert opportunities for the show in Italy later in the summer. Dave was in charge of getting the Irish musicians and building a website. It was Dave that came up with the name TarantaCeltica and designed the fab Celtic spider logo. My job was to organise the first meeting of the group in Ireland and some concert opportunities in this country. There was also the small, but vital matter of financing the operation to be considered.
From the beginning the project was met with enthusiasm. Working to a tight timeframe, we were delighted to receive much needed financial support from a number of funding agencies to enable the project to go ahead. Andrea quickly confirmed that he would be joined by two highly regarded Tarantella musicians, Francesco Loccisano and Mico Corapi. Dave was also able to confirm that multi-instrumentalist Brian Morrissey would be joining the band. The final band member proved harder to find. Dave was looking for a fiddle player or an uilleann piper and those he approached, though enthusiastic, were unavailable. When Brian suggested we consider one of the Cullen sisters, one a fiddler and the other an uilleann piper, we were faced with a dilemma. Which to choose? In the end it was decided that we would stretch the already strained finances a bit further and invite them both. Being both available for the dates on offer and up for the adventure, they both agreed and so we had our ensemble. In the meantime, I had a commitment from two festivals and a music venue to present the world premiere concerts in Ireland at the end of April, and Andrea had confirmed bookings for the show in Calabria in late August.
Finally the day arrived when the musicians came together in The Red Studio at my home on the side of Slievenamon in County Tipperary. Staying with myself and my partner and in the homes of friends, the musicians would gather at our home for breakfast each day and then headed up to the studio to work together, sharing tunes and songs, and weaving together the two ancient musical traditions to create new compositions and arrangements. In the evenings it was the turn of the cooks among the ensemble to share their native delicacies, with Andrea fulfilling the first part of the promise with a sumptuous pasta dish on the Monday evening, followed by a lamb stew on the Tuesday which was cooked by my partner Theresia Guschlbauer (adding a touch of French flair to the Irish tradition).
The first public outing of the collaboration was at Fennelly’s of Callan, where the band went for lunch on the Wednesday. After the meal the group played a few tunes gaining our first fans, who showed up with an entourage for the concert in Clonmel the following day. The Clonmel concert was in Raheen House Hotel, a venue I had put many shows on in during my time as Director of Clonmel Junction Festival. Promoted by Clonmel Applefest, a packed house of local musicians, friends and family gave the first outing of TarantaCeltica a marvellous reception. The capacity audience at the second concert in The White Horse Bar in Ballincollig, had a different charge to the opening night, however as in Clonmel the Cork audience responded with exuberant applause and cheering following each number.
Leaving suburban Cork, the band headed west to the small village of Ballydehob for the final concert. TarantaCeltica, which up until the Monday of this week had been an ‘exciting idea’ were the headline act on the Saturday night in a 300 seat concert hall. Booking for the concert had been sluggish, but it had picked up during the week as video clips of the band in Fennelly’s and Raheen House began circulating on social media. In the end, extra seating had to be put in to accommodate a capacity crowd, and they were not disappointed. With the confidence of two sold out nights behind them, the TarantaCeltica band moved up a gear for the final concert, playing the new repertoire of tunes with swagger and joy. The audience responded with cheers, and the evening ended with a good cohort of enthusiastic festival goers surging forward to dance to the hypnotic rhythms, a fusing of the ancient musical traditions into a contemporary collaborative cultural celebration.
TarantaCeltica will be playing a series of festival shows in Calabria in August - I have my suitcase packed already.