Irish Arts Week in the Catskills

Long ago, toward the beginning of the summer, B and I trekked all the way to Upstate New York for the Catskills Irish Arts Festival. My legions of loyal fans already knew this, but I never gave the festival enough cover space on the blog. Between everything going on (or not going on) in recent weeks and waiting for pictures (all photo credits in this post go to B herself!), I only passingly posted about the Festival. So here's the lowdown, everyone!

Some of you may remember the Tumblr blog that SEDiva started as exactly one year ago. Last summer, as a partial graduation gift, I organized a huge trek across Ireland, mostly to attend a couple of infamous Irish music festivals: the Willie Clancy and Joe Mooney weeks. You can visit the old blog to remind yourself about all of those musical venturings.

B and I had so much fun at Willie Clancy last year that we decided to try the American version of the same events this year. In true Irish fashion, the music festival is in a random, middle-of-nowhere town that's hard to get to. We drove, and having a car for the week turned out to be immensely helpful. We offered rides more than once, and it was all around handy. The Festival was structured similarly to ones in Ireland. Festival-goers could attend classes and pay a registration fee that allowed them access to all the concerts and extra events. However, many musicians could elect to not attend courses at all, simply enjoying the environment of the week. In true American fashion, these sorts of people were labelled "moochers" a lot up in the Catskills. In Ireland, I have to say people didn't care as much.

B and I both took classes. I took singing in the morning with Seamus Begley and whistle in the afternoon with Mary Bergin. Both classes were a lot of fun, but pretty large. Seamus couldn't stand air-conditioning, so we got to sit outside every morning singing with the lawn mowers. It was epic. I managed to pick up the courage to joke with Mary about how she kicked me out of her Intermediate class last summer, and she remembered me almost immediately. Don't worry: she had only kicked me out to say I should be in the Advanced class upstairs. This year, I didn't make that mistake. I signed up for her Advanced class. Every whistler has to take a class from Mary Bergin at least once (hopefully a hundred times) in their lifetime!

It was an adventuresome week, as any week will tend to be with little to no sleep and lots of music and pints. And B and I had lots of fun. However, Catskills is no Willie Clancy or even Joe Mooney. The American festival had an environment that the Irish ones did not, and I can't say that I liked it. It was very tightly scheduled, less spontaneous, and a little more pretentious. I made more friends but met less people than I did at either Irish festival.

Overall, however, it was great fun. If you'd like a little more Irish music in your summer, check it out!