[Northkeep] Cherish the Ladies in Bartlesville

[Mercedes/Stephanie]

BARTLESVILLE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PRESENTS
CHERISH THE LADIES

Bartlesville Symphony Orchestra, with Lauren Green, Music
Director-Conductor, proudly presents "A Celtic Celebration" featuring
Cherish the Ladies.  Billy Altman of the New York Daily News has called this
ensemble "one of the foremost Irish traditional music groups in the world."
With music sure to encourage vigorous foot-tapping, clapping, and
excitement, tunes of poignant melancholy will balance the Irish mix for a
concert sure to fulfill its promise.  Saturday evening May 17, 2003 at 8
will herald the start of this long-awaited program in the Bartlesville
Community Center, Adams Boulevard at Cherokee.  Tickets are available by
calling the box office at (918) 336-2787 or at the door for $25 plus $1
handling fee.

Making music with friends and family is a timeless Irish tradition which
Cherish the Ladies is proud to carry on.  The group offers a mix of jigs,
reels and airs, wistful ballads of love and longing, folk songs and even a
bawdy tune or two, all capturing the Irish experience dating from the 1600s
to the present.  In 1983 folklorist and banjo player, Dr. Mick Moloney,
noticed a new trend.  Although the Irish tradition held that fathers passed
music on to their sons, he found a growing number of women learning from
their fathers who now excelled in traditional Irish music.  He approached
Joanie Madden, an all-Ireland music champion to put together a series of
all-women concerts along with The Ethnic Folk Arts Center.  The first
recording, "The Back Door," was chosen by the Library of Congress as "Best
Folk Album of the Year," resulting in a grant from the National Endowment
for the Arts to mount a "one-time only" tour.  Of course, the tours have
proliferated, bringing Irish music and goodwill worldwide, while the group
has shared the stage with Emmylou Harris, James Taylor, Joan Baez, Kathy
Mattea, The Clancy Brothers, Tommy Makem, and the Boston Pops Orchestra.
The New York Times hailed their music as "passionate, tender and
rambunctious," while the Los Angeles Times called them "a superb female
ensemble...melodically elegant, rhythmically irresistible."  They earned a
Grammy nomination in 1999 for a collaboration with Keith Lockhart and The
Boston Pops on "The Celtic Album" and last year they were awarded "Band of
the Year" by the BBC Folk Awards in London.  Leader Madden says "Our
objective always is to add to the music, to nurture it, never to take away
from it.  I wanted to stick to the folk vein.  It's what we do best."

Leader Joanie Madden is a World Champion on both the whistle and the concert
flute.  The youngest member ever inducted into the Irish-American Musicians
Hall of Fame, she was named the 1997 Traditional Musician of the Year.  Mary
Coogan is a guitar, mandolin and banjo player, named in Acoustic Guitar
Magazine as one of the top four guitarists in Celtic music.  Holding a
masters degree in education, Mary has been WIth the group for many years.
Donna Long is considered one of the finest pianists playing Irish music.
Fiddler Brendan Mulvihill also inspired her to pick up the fiddle and gave
her a solid foundation in style and playing.  Marie Reilly's father
supervised her early endeavors on fiddle and tin whistle beginning at 8
years old.  Heavily influenced by the legendary Kerry fiddler, Johnny
Cronin, she studied many years with the late Maureen Glynn.  She played with
Riverdance.  A graduate of Fordham Law School, she is a member of the New
York bar.  Heidi Talbot was born and raised in Kill, County Kildare.  Heidi
learned to play guitar at age 12 and was a fine singer taking part in local
sessions.  Invited to come to America by the popular Cara Band of New York,
she is now lead singer with Cherish the Ladies.  Mirella Murray on accordion
and step dancers Eileen Golden and John Jennings round out the energetic and
talented group of musicians.