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Irish Music Hour

February 13 @ 3:00 pm

irish musicians

Department of Music

Irish Music Hour

Diarmuid Ó Meachair (button accordion & melodeon) and Matt Mulqueen (piano) will perform a program featuring the music of PJ Conlon (1920s, New York) and Joe Derrane (1940s, Boston).

Peter Conlon, the king of the melodeon was Peter James “PJ” Conlon, an immigrant born in 1892 near Milltown, County Galway who recorded some fifty commercial recordings between 1917 and 1929. PJ’s eldest sister Mary Ellen also played the melodeon and recorded a 78 rpm disc of her own in 1923.

Conlon began his recording career playing a German-made instrument like that used by John Kimmel but later switched to a more powerful eight-voice accordion from Baldoni Bartoli, an Italian-American firm whose instruments became the preferred choice among Irish-American “box” players. He played at a fast pace but always in complete control, and with a penchant for ornamentation and melodic variation. The Depression put an end to his recording career, but Conlon continued to perform in bars and dance halls. A benefit concert was organized for him in 1935 at the fiddler James Morrison’s Celtic Hall in west Harlem. Though he lived until 1967, Conlon was not musically active after 1951. His influence on later Irish players was immense and it could well be said that modern traditional Irish style on the button accordion started with P.J. Conlon.

Joe Derrane electrified the world of Irish music back in the late 1940s when as a high school senior he recorded eight solo 78-rpm shellac discs for Boston’s Copley Records on the D/C# two-row button accordion. Through his recordings and performances, this native Bostonian defined the state of the art in Irish-American button accordion playing.

The Boston-born son of Irish immigrants, Joe Derrane was among the finest button accordionists in the history of Irish music. He was also a somewhat elusive legend in the genre.

After recording during the 1940s and ‘50s, he disappeared from the traditional music circuit for thirty-five years, popping up again in 1994 at the Irish Folk Festival at Wolf Trap. 

In 2004 Derrane received one of the highest honors for a traditional musician: the National Endowment for the Arts’ National Heritage Fellowship.

Details

Feb 13, 2025
3:00 PM

Price

Free Entry

Venue

Brooks Concert Hall

Details

Date:
February 13
Time:
3:00 pm
Event Category:

Venue

DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC – Brooks Concert Hall –
1 College St
Worcester, MA 01610 United States
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