Irish Arts Center Presents Winter Solstice at Symphony Space

Irish Arts Center brings its annual holiday celebration of Irish, American, and world music, dance and storytelling with Mick Moloney, Athena Tergis, and a cast of America's top Irish and world musicians to Symphony Space, December 16-17. Bill Whelan, Grammy Award-winning composer of Riverdance added that the event is exactly "what Christmas should be about - celebration, craic, good music and song, the closeness of friends and family, and the thought spared for our sisters and brothers on the margins of life." This year, Winter Solstice welcomes MacDara Vallely to direct a ritual performance inspired by the old Celtic quarter festivals of the winter solstice, combining mumming, poetry, music, drama, song and dance from Ireland, England and the Caribbean islands.

Mick Moloney (musical director and performer, tenor banjo, octave mandolin), is originally from County Limerick, Ireland, and was a member of the Johnstons folk group in Ireland before coming to the US in 1973. In America, he teamed up with the much-loved fiddler Eugene O'Donnell whom he played with for over twenty years. He also performed during this time and recorded extensively with Robbie O'Connell and Jimmy Keane. Now a professor of Music and Irish Studies at New York University, Moloney is also a producer and performer in over sixty recordings and several documentary films, author of Far from the Shamrock Shore: The Story of Irish American History Through Song and editor of Close to the Floor: The Story of Irish Dance in America and the recipient of the National Heritage Award.

Athena Tergis (fiddle) hails from a musical family in San Francisco where she released her first album at age 16. She followed her passion for traditional music to Ireland and joined the Sharon Shannon Band. Athena was also the featured violinist in the production of Riverdance on Broadway. She spent over a year on tour with Bruce Springsteen's sax player, Clarence Clemmons. In 2001 she joined Mick Moloney and Billy McComiskey in The Green Fields of America releasing their self-titled album on Compass Records along with her solo album A Letter Home and a PBS documentary Absolutely Irish! Athena is also a regular principal soloist and composer with the Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra.

Artists joining Mick Moloney and Athena Tergis include Brendan Dolan (pianist), Liz Hanley (fiddler and singer), Tamar Korn (jazz vocalist), Billy McComiskey (button accordionist), Niall O'Leary (Irish step dancer), John Roberts (guitarist and singer), Leni Sloan (dancer), MacDara Vallely (mumming performance director and performer) as well as more special guests.

Tickets for the performances (December 16 @ 8pm; December 17 @ 3pm) start at $25 and are available by visiting www.IrishArtsCenter.org or by calling 212-932-3228. Irish Arts Center is located at 553 West 51st Street.

About the Special Guests

Billy McComiskey (button accordionist) originally from Brooklyn, has been playing the accordion for over 50 years studying alongside many of the finest Irish immigrant musicians of the 20th Century. He is a recipient of the 2016 National Heritage Fellowship award, and has been at the center of the revival of traditional music with the trail-blazing groupThe Irish Tradition in Washington D.C., and performances and classes in The Catskills and his adopted home in Baltimore, Maryland where he is considered the Godfather of Irish music. An All-Ireland champion in 1986, he either taught or deeply influenced many prominent traditional Irish musicians throughout the United States and he has performed with Mick Moloney since the late 1970s in The Green Fields of America Ensemble. He also plays in the quintessential Irish-American Trad band The Pride of New York, a first-generation group of tradition bearers who have played in Ireland and major festivals in America.

Liz Hanley (fiddler and singer), a native of Boston, is one of the top young musicians in the New York Irish music scene. She plays the fiddle with great energy and flair and is a fine singer whose repertoire spans multiple genres from Irish traditional and rock to hip-hop and classical. Liz graduated from New York University with a Bachelor's of Music in classical violin performance and has toured the United States, Europe and Southeast Asia. She can be seen playing around New York in seisiúns and with the likes of Mick Moloney, Frogbelly and Symphony. Be sure to check out Hanley's debut album The Ecstasy of St. Cecilia.

Niall O'Leary (Irish step dancer) is an architect and a former All-Ireland and World Champion dancer. He is from Dublin, but his parents are both from Kerry. He runs his own architectural practice in NYC, as well as the Niall O'Leary School of Irish Dance. His Irish dance teachers included Kevin Massey, proclaimed by Michael Flatley to be the greatest Irish dancer ever, and Rory O'Connor, the first man to do Irish dancing on the radio. He is the Artistic Director of the New York City Irish Dance Festival presented by Irish Arts Center in May each year. O'Leary performs regularly as a solo artist, in duet with Darrah Carr, and with Mick Moloney's Green Fields of America, as well as with his company The Niall O'Leary Irish Dance Troupe. He is in constant demand as a performer, choreographer and master instructor and conducts regular workshops and master classes around the US, Canada, Ireland, Mexico, Japan, Thailand and Vietnam. He has made an instructional video in Irish step dancing entitled Cuts from the Kitchen. He is the founding chairman of Ull Mor CCÉ, the Manhattan branch of Comhaltas, and plays accordion, keyboards, bodhrán and spoons. He was the president of the Irish Business Organization of NY Inc. 2010-2011. O'Leary was honored in 2004 by Irish America Magazine as one of the Top 100 Irish-Americans of the Year. www.nialloleary.com.

Lenwood Sloan (dancer) is currently co collaborator with Dr. Mick Moloney, director of Irish studies at NYU, on the innovative "Two Roads" series, originally commissioned for Irish Arts Center of New York and Harlem Stage. Sloan was recipient of the 2013 Pennsylvania Humanities Council's Distinguished Humanitarian Award as well as the Pennsylvania System of Higher Education's Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award. Forthe past three years, Lenwood Sloan was artist in residence at Jump Street Inc. where he spearheaded the masters and mentors in the performing arts initiative for area High School students. He was invited to serve as Director of Arts, Culture and Tourism for the City of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania during the transition and first 300 days of the Papenfuse administration. In that capacity, he also supervised the city's department of parks and recreation, special events, and summer youth activities. From 2011-13, Sloan was an international consultant collaborating with the U.S. Embassy of the European Union and the multi nation Liberation Route on a new multi-nation WWII heritage trail. Sloan has served as Director of the National Endowment for the Arts' landmark Presenting and Commissioning Program, Deputy Director of Services to the Field for the California Arts Council, Director of New Orleans Arts and Tourism partnership (where he received the Louisiana Travel and Tourism leadership award and Gambit Communication's Business Innovations Award), and Director of the dance program for San Francisco Arts Commission, where he created the widely acclaimed San Francisco Dance Film Festival. His artistic credits include creating "art in the market place" programs for the Rouse Corporation in New Orleans, St. Louis, Boston, and Baltimore. In addition, he participated on the artistic team for television documentaries including, Treme - Untold Story, Emmy award winning Ethnic Notions, Stephen Foster, the internationally acclaimed Re-imaging Ireland, and the Emmy award winning Dance Black America. American audiences have enjoyed multiple works created by Mr. Sloan including the award winning 13 Lessons, a play about adult literacy, Vo-du Macbeth, voted one of the 10 best plays of the new south, The Creole Mass commissioned for the New Orleans St. Louis Cathedral, Her Talking Drums and Williams and Walker for off-Broadway's American Place Theater, Sweet Saturday Night for Brooklyn Academy Of Music, and the acclaimed The Wake for which he received a San Francisco Drama Critics award.

Tamar Korn (jazz vocalist) has been a full-time New York-based vocalist for a decade, playing a repertoire steeped in early twentieth century American music. From traditional New Orleans and 1920's and 30's jazz to western swing, early country, roots and folk, gospel and bluegrass, (and now endeavoring towards singing Yiddish music), Tamar's love is of both of the lyrical traditions in song as well as the improvisational capacity to feel and play musical sounds. She thus often is noted for playing "instrumentally" with her voice. She leads her own ensembles - A Kornucopia- sings in western swing band The Brain Cloud, and formerly the Cangelosi Cards. She often joins Baby Soda Jazz band, Gordon Au's Grand Street Stompers, stride pianist Terry Waldo, and occasionally Mark O'Connor's Hot Swing Trio. Tamar has traveled for music in the States and Canada, and to Scandinavia, France, Lithuania, and China. Tamar is elated and honored to join, for the fifth time, this dear community in celebration of life, culture, and the Solstice: Mick and cohorts, and the crew at IAC and Symphony Space.

MacDara Vallely (mumming performance director and performer) is a writer and director whose second feature film, BABYGIRL, was released theatrically in the USA on October 2013. It won Best Irish Feature at the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival; Best Feature at the Santa Barbara Film Festival 2013; and The 2013 Panavision Independent Spirit Award, and was premiered at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival. His first feature film, PEACEFIRE, was adapted from his Edinburgh Fringe First winning play and premiered at Karlovy Vary. It won Best First Feature at Galway Film Fleadh, the Special Jury Prize at the European First Feature Festival at Angers, and the Grand Jury Prize at the Annonay Film Festival. Most recently, Vallely wrote and directed the television documentary John Philip Holland: Inventor of the Modern Submarine, which will be broadcast nationally in Ireland on November 22, 2016.

About Irish Arts Center

Founded in 1972, Irish Arts Center is a New York-based arts and cultural center dedicated to projecting a dynamic image of Ireland and Irish America for the 21st century, building community with artists and audiences of all backgrounds, forging and strengthening cross-cultural partnerships, and preserving the evolving stories and traditions of Irish culture for generations to come. Our multi-disciplinary programming is centered around three core areas: Performance - including live music, dance, theatre, film, literature, and the humanities; Exhibition - including visual arts presentations and cultural exhibitions that tell the evolving Irish story; and Education - with dozens of classes per week in Irish language, history, music, and dance.

Located in New York City, a global capital of arts and culture, Irish Arts Center serves as a dynamic platform for top emerging and established artists. Irish Arts Center is currently developing plans to construct a new facility to serve our multi-disciplinary program and will be the strongest possible gateway for artists to reach into our cultural community and nourish their work, to connect with our partner institutions who help them innovate, and to become visible in the New York City media market which enhances their ability to achieve U.S and further international success.

The New Irish Arts Center will contain a purpose-built, state-of-the-art contemporary performance space for music, dance and theatre seating up to 160; industry-standard back of house and support facilities to allow artists to achieve their vision; a second, intimate performance space - the renovated historic Irish Arts Center theatre - optimized for live music, literature, film, talks, large classes and special events; classrooms and studio space for community education programs in Irish music, dance, language, history, and the humanities, and for master classes and workshops by visiting and resident artists; technology capability to project the Irish Arts Center experience on the digital platform; an avenue-facing café lobby to engage with the neighborhood and provide a social setting for conversation and interaction between artists and audiences; a beautiful new courtyard entrance on 51st Street where the historic Irish Arts Center building and the new facility meet.

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