Makem's granddaughter keeps the tradition alive

The Irish Echo, June 18-24 2008, "Ceol" by Earle Hitchner
The marital, musical duo of Makem and O Duinnchinn

On the 2007 album "Buille," concertinist Niall Vallely composed and, with his brother Caoimhin on piano and Lunasa's Paul Meehan on guitar, performed "Tiarnan and Stephanie's." It was written for the 2000 wedding of Monaghan uilleann pipes and whistle player Tiarnan O Duinnchinn, a former member of the Armagh Pipers Club, and Armagh singer Stephanie Makem, grandniece of the late Tommy Makem.

The married duo share another connection with Paul Meehan: membership in the now defunct Ulster band Dorsa. Founded in 2000 as Na Dorsa, named after a South Armagh town, the group previously comprised Desy Adams on flute, Margaret Cunningham on vocals, Paul Bradley on fiddle, Martin Quinn on button accordion, Meehan, and O Duinnchinn.

In 2000, the sextet self-released their debut album, "The Wild Music of the Gael," and some critics immediately compared the group to the Bothy Band. This tiresome, knee-jerk, premature oversell by invoking the Bothy Band, a group of unsurpassed talent during 1975-79 and unceasing influence since then, is usually counterproductive. It can hobble, not help, the career of any promising Irish traditional group saddled with such a grandiose comparison.

Though hardly at the level of the Bothy Band, Na Dorsa's instrumental music was admirably energetic and skillful. But the group's Achilles' heel was its voice: Carrick's Margaret Cunningham. Her singing was lackluster and forgettable.

By 2003, the group had shortened its name, had seen the departure of Desy Adams, and had acquired a new lead singer in Stephanie Makem. Dorsa issued a self-titled, two-track CD single that year, which was marred by a last-minute cancellation of their second U.S. tour when band visas were unexpectedly held up by the INS. It was a mortal blow to the group, especially since they were also poised to make a second full album. Dorsa folded five years ago, and band members have been pursuing their own musical projects and other collaborations ever since.

One such collaboration is the duo of Tiarnan O Duinnchinn and Stephanie Makem, who have just come out with their new project, "Ceol Is Piob." The selfissued CD features fresh renditions of "The Silver Slipper," a hop jig previously recorded on "Dorsa," and "Whinny Hills of Leitrim," a jig previously recorded on "The Wild Music of the Gael."

O Duinnchinn's uilleann piping is a marvel of invention in those tunes on "Ceol Is Piob." In the jig medley of "Whinny Hills of Leitrim / Paidin O Rafferty / Miller's Maggot," his deftness on regulators provides contrapuntal accents and complementary coloration to his chanter playing. He plays a B-flat set of pipes on "The Silver Slipper," paired with the reel "The Glen Road to Carrick," where his chanter work is both precise and hard-charging. And in the highland / reels medley of "Hughie Gillespie's / Sporting Paddy / Bonny Bunch of Ferns," his piping builds expertly in intensity from smolder to blaze.

In "Tommy Peoples' / Mac Cathal's / Buntata Agus Sgadan," O Duinnchinn truly takes flight, displaying all his skills on chanter, regulators, and drones, driving these reels with fleet ferocity, backed by Steve Cooney's guitar, bodhran, and bass. It's a scorcher of a track.

O Duinnchinn also takes the overfamiliar slow air "The Coolin" and gives it an appealing, new interpretation laced with imaginative ornamentation, brings sly humor to his piping on the barn dance medley he calls "Ballroom Favourites," and distills some of the baroque essence of Handel's "Gigue for Keyboard in G," in which Feargal Murray plays continuolike rhythm on a harpsichord setting for electric keyboard to support O Duinnchinn's melody on pipes. Hewing more to a classical approach, this Handel handling by O Duinnchinn and Murray stands in contrast to De Dannan's "The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba (in Galway)," the band's 1990 trad-propelled take on "Arrival of the Queen of Sheba," a popular sinfonia from Handel's 1748 opera "Solomon." If ever proof were needed of Tiarnan O Duinnchinn's rising star as an uilleann piper, this album provides it. He is a superb player.

Among the 14 tracks of this CD are three songs in Irish and two songs in English sung by Stephanie Makem. She has a delicate, alluring whisper of a voice that adds to the close, quiet, confessional nature of her singing. It's almost as if we were eavesdropping on her own private counsel conveyed through such songs as "Lough Erne Shore," "Urchnoc Chein Mhic Cainte," and "Airdi Cuain," the last of which she learned from the singing of the late Micheal O Domhnaill on "Portland," the 1982 album he made with fiddler Kevin Burke.

Makem's rendition of three verses of "I Wish My Love Was a Red, Red Rose" matches the same three verses sung by Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh on Altan's "Runaway Sunday" album in 1997. Both vocalists bring uncommon tenderness to this song, and both cite Keady, Armagh's Sarah Makem, Stephanie's great-grandmother, as their source. (Though listed as track #13, this song is actually track #12 on "Ceol Is Piob.") Makem sings "Liontar Duinn An Cruiscin," a traditional drinking song, with the same melody but revised lyrics from Seaghan Ban Mac Grianna. Her lighthearted vocal recalls Clannad's approach toward a different version of this song on their "Crann Ull" recording in 1980.

Though Dorsa was short-lived and is now gone, former members Tiarnan O Duinnchinn and Stephanie Makem appear to have planted a flag of greater durability as a duo with this fine album. It is vocally enchanting and instrumentally inspiring.

To acquire "Ceol Is Piob" (CB001), visit www.tiarnan.ie. The album is also available stateside from Ossian USA, 118 Beck Rd., Loudon, NH 03307, 603- 783-4383, info@ossianusa.com, www.ossianusa.com.