Chulrua - The Band

The Band

Festivals • Concerts • Workshops • Ceili Dances • School Programs • & more... Updated 02/23/09

Who We Are

The name of our group is Chulrua, and we play Irish traditional music.

Chulrua (pronounced cool-ROO-ah), translates from the Irish as "red back," and was the name and distinguishing feature of the favorite wolfhound belonging to ancient Irish hero Fionn MacCumhaill.

It is also the name of an internationally acclaimed trio of some of the most respected and unique exponents of Irish traditional music.

A product of County Offaly in the midlands of Ireland, Paddy O’Brien is regarded by serious players and collectors of Irish traditional music as one of the tradition’s most important repositories; in a musical career that spans nearly forty years, he has collected more than 3,000 compositions—jigs, reels, hornpipes, airs, and marches, including many rare and unusual tunes. His mastery of the two-row button accordion was also acknowledged through prestigious awards: he was named Oireachtas champion four times, and All-Ireland senior accordion champion in 1975. In Ireland, he played and recorded with the famed Castle Ceili Band and Ceoltoiri Laighean. In 1978, Paddy began playing regularly in the United States, in Washington D.C., Saint Louis, Saint Paul, San Francisco, Boston, New York, and many places between. He has been featured on three recordings with Shanachie Records since 1978, and in 1988 released his first solo album, Stranger at the Gate, on the Green Linnet label. Paddy has taught at the prestigious Willie Clancy Summer School held in Milltown Malbay, County Clare, and three times served as a master artist in the Minnesota State Arts Board Folk Arts Apprenticeship Program. In the fall of 1994, he received a $6,500 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to record and annotate 500 tunes from his vast repertoire of traditional music; the result of that effort, The Paddy O’Brien Tune Collection: A Personal Treasury of Irish Jigs and Reels, has received accolades from players of Irish music around the world.

Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1955 to a very musical family, Tony DeMarco is a well-known and well-respected figure on the Irish fiddle circuit. His abilities in his particular style, that of Sligo fiddling, have earned him a successful career spanning more than three decades, including collaborations with such artists as Celtic Thunder, Black 47, and fellow fiddler Brian Conway, a musical partnership that led to the 1981 recording, The Apple in Winter, a landmark of fiddle duets. Tony has played for the Smithsonian Institution’s Folklife Festival and co-authored a fiddle tutor, A Trip To Sligo. He has been a featured performer at leading Irish music festivals in the U.S. and Europe, and can be seen and heard weekly at Paddy Reilly’s Pub in New York City. In 2008, he released a solo album entitled The Sligo Indians on Smithsonian Folkways records.

Fiddle player Patrick Ourceau was born and raised in France, settled in New York City in 1989 and is now based in Toronto, Canada. Although he is mostly self-taught, Patrick’s fiddle playing has been greatly influenced and shaped by the music of the great Co. Clare and East Co. Galway musicians he has been in contact with over the years—from his many visits to Ireland and frequent meetings with fiddle players Paddy Canny and Peter O’Loughlin, but also from the great musicians living in New York City, particularly flute player Jack Coen from Woodford in Co. Galway. Patrick has been performing across the U.S., Canada, and Europe since the early nineties, has been featured on a host of recordings, and is in demand as a teacher at festivals and summer schools across North America and Ireland.

Pat Egan is becoming a recognized force on the contemporary folk scene. A native of Tipperary, Pat grew up singing and playing, and has been a professional musician since 1985. He served his apprenticeship with the Dublin groups Old Bawn and De Min, and has since been a member of Idle Wall, and the Mayo-based traditional group Sheeaun. More recently, his performance on the internationally acclaimed recording Music at Matt Molloy’s brought his talent to much wider attention, and in 1994 he produced a highly regarded solo tape, Songs for the Candle. Now based in Baltimore, Maryland, Pat has made extensive tours of the United States, and has also performed in Sweden, Norway, Holland, Germany, and Scotland. He has appeared on numerous television and radio programs, in the U.S., Ireland, and abroad.

Detailed Biographies

What We Do

Our music is the old instrumental dance melodies of Ireland: jigs, reels, hornpipes, polkas, and the occasional song. We also play walking marches, slow airs, set dances, and the harp music of Turlough O'Carolan and others. Our concerts are in keeping with the old tradition—music in a relaxed, intimate atmosphere, and tunes offered as they were handed down from generation to generation in Ireland.

The heart of Irish music is the session, where tunes are played and traded, and conversation about music is the central theme. Sessions can be held anywhere, but are usually the best—and most relaxed—in a small, intimate place like the kitchen of a house or a small pub. The music we present onstage comes from that tradition.

Together we have almost 70 years of experience performing at community fairs and festivals, colleges and universities, folk clubs, and a variety of other venues—doing concerts, workshops, dances, and school residencies all over the United States.

Selected list of appearances

Festivals

Chulrua has performed at many Irish festivals, folk festivals, and community celebrations around the United States and in Canada. We often combine concert appearances with workshops at festivals, and are happy to play for dancers and appear at demonstration booths to talk with festival-goers about our instruments and the music we play.

Concerts

Chulrua concerts are generally at least two full 50-minute sets. We try to make our concerts more than just a healthy dose of Irish traditional music; we also talk a bit about our instruments and the different types of tunes played in the tradition, tell a few stories about how particular tunes got their names, and about the musicians who composed or handed down the tunes and songs we play.

Workshops

Every member of the band offers instrumental workshops: Paddy on button accordion; Patrick on fiddle; and Pat on guitar. Paddy also offers a workshop he calls 'Reaching for the Draíocht: Exploring Irish Traditional Music,' which presents his own unique historical perspective on the essence of Irish music.

Full Descriptions of Chulrua Workshops

All our workshops can be customized to the needs and interests of local players.

We sometimes sit in at sessions as well, and really enjoy this way of getting to know fellow Irish musicians in the communities we visit.

Céilí Dances

Originally just a general term for a party, a céilí (pronounced KAY-lee) is now the term used for an Irish dance, where people do jigs, reels, polkas, usually in groups of four to eight, or in long lines. We generally play two or three one-hour sets for céilís, with breaks of 15-20 minutes between.

We usually find it's best to start with about 30 minutes of instruction for people unfamiliar with the dances, and to have someone call dances during the course of the evening, and may occasionally be able to recommend a dance instructor if no local teacher is available.

School Residencies

Education is really a part of everything we do in sharing our love of Irish traditional music. Chulrua band members have done numerous school programs, including all-school assemblies, and smaller-scale classroom visits, talking about our instruments, the music we play, and the cultural traditions of Ireland. We've developed an original handout, "What Is Irish Traditional Music?" that talks about the history and origins of traditional music in Ireland, and shows pictures and talks about the various instruments used in the tradition.