Sat. March 20

It's the fifth consecutive year for Brian O'Donovan's "A St. Patrick’s Day Celtic Sojourn." a lively Celtic event which features traditional and contemporary Irish music, dance and storytelling to celebrate the St. Patrick’s holiday. This year’s show, Saturday March 20 at Sanders Theatre, features legendary Irish fiddler, Frankie Gavin, and his band, De Danann; world-renowned Celtic guitarist, Tony McManus; and harpist and Berklee alum, Maeve Gilchrist. The event is O’Donovan, the host of WGBH's "Celtic Sojourn" for over 25 years, to exlain the genesis of the event, how it's grown, what kind of mood he wants to establish and how Irish culture and music has grown in America over the years.
O'Donovan e-mailed us: "The St. Pats Day show was really a reaction to the myriad questions I would get each year from listeners:  What do you recommend we do around St.Patrick's Day for music? I would regularly look around the calendars for answers, and while there were high quality concerts of individual performances here and there, the scene was really made up of over-the-top extravaganzas on the one hand, like Celtic Women or Celtic Thunder and Lightning, or as of now, six nights of the Dropkicks at House of Blues.  On the other hand, a lot of bar music.   Absolutely nothing wrong with any of the above, but I was aware that our weekly audience was more into the type of music they hear on the show. Traditional and contemporary, exploring
celtic music's roots and branches. 

"So, we hired the Somerville theatre and 'put on a show.' I am a big fan of the old fashioned variety show myself, and so that's the basic structure; three or four different groups, often peppered with a dancer and presented in a casual 'session' type environment where collaboration - even spontaneous - is encouraged.   This seems to work for our audience and over the past few years, we have had Karan Casey, John Doyle, Maura O'Connell, Sean Keane, John Spillane, Beoga, Tony McManus to name a few.  I act as host and often intersperse some piece of historical background, occasionally a poem, a joke, an anecdote.  

"Traditional Irish music is a living entity and does well in its natural environment.  Even on stage, this environment is ideally warm, open,welcoming. This year's line up is pretty impressive in terms of musical chops and lineage.  Frankie Gavin is a founding member of the group De Dannan which was a seminal trad band from the 1970s and 80s.  While Frankie has re-formed the band with a quartet of newcomers, it is his musical sensibility that gives it continuity with previous iterations.   De Dannan was never a consistent band, personal wise, for more than a few years at a time, and many singers - including Maura O'Connell and Mary Black - made their early starts with them. Tony McManus is one of the finest finger-style guitarists in the world.  In fact no less of a personage than John Renbourn described him as such.  Paul Reed Smith described him as the 'Jeff Beck of the Accoustic guitar.'He is also a terrific collaborator. Maeve Gilchrist is a beautiful young harpist/singer from Edinburgh of Irish/Scottish parents. She has completed her course work at Berklee and brings quite an innovative jazz sensibility to her Scottish/Irish traditional repertoire.   She will be joined by a bassist, Aidan Gallagher and the venerable Darol Anger, who has played with David Grisman Quartet, Mike Marshall, and Tony Rice. Darol is producing Maeve's upcoming CD.  

"We have also added Nic Gareiss, a wonderful young innovative dancer from Minnesota who is steeped in the traditions of tap, Appalachian, soft shoe, and now, Sean Nos (Old Style Irish) dancing having spent a year studying at the University of Limerick.  Nic was a huge hit during this past year's multiple city tour of Christmas Celtic Sojourn which played to over 9,500 fans. ... Essentially, that's it. A good time to be had by all. And of course, Sanders is itself such a wonderful place to be."

Tickets are $20-$45. Starts at 8.

45 Quincy St., Cambridge, 617-496-4595 www.wgbh.org/celtic