Celtic Music Society is an Irish music ensemble comprised of musicians from East Rochester High School. Our sound is traditional Irish, often combined with other contemporary influences. Not yet three years old, this ensemble has performed more than eighty times, released a full-length studio CD, shared the stage with some of the area's and the world's top Irish musicians, and presented master classes for music educators at the New York State Music Education Conference, Nazareth College, and the Eastman School of Music. Their 2004 schedule includes performances at the University of Rochester and Hochstein Performance Hall, their second performance with Irish supergroup Lúnasa, hosting workshops and a concert by three-time All-Ireland Champion Brian Conway, a spring Ceili with the Boland School of Irish Dance, and appearances on local television and radio programs. This July they will travel on a performance tour to Boston and New York.

Notes from Mark Gowman on the Creation of Celtic Music Society:

Celtic Music Society was born out of the idea that school band musicians, trained in the classical style, could quickly learn to play as traditional Irish musicians as well. What started almost as an experiment of my own educational theories has become a passion of sorts for me and for the students. The story of this band begins not in East Rochester, but in Baltimore, Maryland, where the first Celtic Music Society was formed. In 1999, I was in my first year at Franklin Middle, a large school that was part of the Baltimore County District. It was at this time that I finally picked up the Irish flute that I had bought for my wife several years before, listened to some recordings, and discovered a love of Irish music. It was an exciting time for me, as I realized that the true musician in me had become stagnant; it was not just Irish music that was new for me, but all music that became new again. I wanted to share this excitement with my students, and invited my band and orchestra students to a new after-school club, one where we would experience the joys of playing this wonderful music: a Celtic music society.

There was not actually any thought of performing; rather, the goal was just to expose students to the music. With the assistance of my colleague and co-director Lee Budar-Danoff and encouragement from fellow BCPS music teachers Cathy Maglaras and Elizabeth, my wife, this group began with two dozen students playing violin, guitar, bass, cello, percussion, flute, and an army of whistles. For the next year and a half, we played after school a few times each week, and even had a couple of performances at other schools. It was loosely organized, and the numbers of students playing fluctuated between a handful and more than thirty. At Franklin, students played specific written arrangements of Irish music; bowings, etc. were written in to make the music more “Irish”. All the while, I was attending some of the outstanding Baltimore Irish music seisúns, learning the Irish style, and realizing how I could better teach the music and the Irish style to the students. I came to realize, with some regret, that I had not prepared the students to be Irish musicians; rather, they were still band and orchestra musicians simply playing arrangements of Irish music.

In November of 2000, my wife Elizabeth gave birth to our first child, Gabriel, and we soon felt the tugging of family and moved north to Rochester. I was hired at East Rochester High School, where I tried to impress my new superintendent with my large binder of Irish music arrangements and my ideas for a new and unique performing group. His initial response: “People here really like their jazz; perhaps you should focus on that.” I did focus on all of my curricular ensembles, but also worked at organizing this new band of folk musicians. (He has long since been won over.) Creating the group was much different than it had been in Baltimore, as the challenge this time was to find enough students to fill the roster. Rather than the 650 band and orchestra musicians at Franklin, there were just 45 band students and no string players in grades 7-12 at ER. On the morning of September 10, 2001 I first mentioned my ideas for this group to the students at ER High, with my plans to start it the following January. Less than 24 hours later our lives changed forever, and after discussing it with several of the more enthusiastic students, we ended up having our first meeting the next week.

The plan was better this time: Rather than give the students notated parts with the style written in, I would teach these classically-trained band students how to play and think like Irish musicians, and set the group up as a performing ensemble. At our first meeting we had two violins—one player who had taken long-forgotten Suzuki lessons, and another who had just started on his own, as well as two guitars, two flutes, a clarinet who would soon become our whistle player, and a beginning guitarist who would reluctantly pick up my old mandolin.

To our own amazement, only three weeks later we played three tunes at the ERHS Coffeehouse, an after-school acoustic music showcase for students, and played a few nights later at the October 2001 school board meeting. We were off and running.

The students seemed to improve exponentially, and we performed 40 times and sold 100 copies of a live-recorded CD during that first year. We then traded one flute player for another, and then another, and then had one move away. We added a bass and low whistles, graduated a violin and added another recent violin beginner. Our second year had far fewer performances, but they were of a somewhat higher quality. Highlights included playing the main stage at the Rochester Irish Festival and a clinic/performance given for music education majors and faculty at Nazareth College, but the true highlight was the performance by Lúnasa at our school, where we opened the night and then joined them on stage for the encore. It was the recording Otherworld by Lúnasa that originally made me fall in love with this music, and their rhythm- and bass-infused music still inspires my arrangements and our sound. It was a true honor to share the stage with them, and it served as an inspiration to all of us. Shortly after their visit, we created arrangements of tunes that we think are some of the best on Color Blind, The Otter Holt and Miss Monaghan’s Reel, as well as several others that will have to wait for the next recording.

For a review of our 2003-2004 events, visit the photo gallery.

--Mark Gowman