By Josh Hughes
Mick Moloney and Athena Tergis, who write and perform traditional, propulsive Irish music together, will be performing at Western’s Old Main Theatre at 7 p.m. on March 28. The duo, who have been working under Moloney’s main outfit, Green Fields of America for 15 years started playing as a pair in 2010, traveling around the world to share the vastness of traditional Irish music.
Moloney, a banjo player and singer, has a background that has fully immersed himself in Irish culture. Between stints as an author, a musicologist, a professor and a storyteller, his career has been steeped in the history of Irish music and its journey to America over the centuries. While his music is indebted to songs from the past, whether they be jigs, reels, hornpipes or other instrumental pieces, his material is in constant flux, attempting to create a cultural bridge between contemporary and historic musical connections.
Tergis, on the other hand, has a rich background as a violin player. Starting at the age of four, she continued on a path of music which led her to studying and playing in Ireland for three years, where she found her true voice as a musician. She went on to perform in Broadway’s “Riverdance” and eventually became a full time member of Moloney’s work under Green Fields of America.
As a band, Green Fields of America remains an integral factor in the conversation of current Irish music, having performed since 1978 as a leading group in the genre. While the lineup has shifted throughout the decades, the band remains Moloney’s main outfit. As a duo, however, Moloney and Tergis dial down on simpler folk songs, leaving intentional negative space between the banjo, vocals and fiddle. Take “simpler” with a grain of salt though, as the sort of Irish music they play relies on pulsating, quick rhythms and delicate fingerpicking.
This takes us to Western, where the duo will put on a performance through Fairhaven college for a night of unadulterated Irish folk music. Their concert material draws from an immense catalog of songs that try to speak volumes on the issues that Irish immigrants have faced from the 1700s up until today. Their songs, which range from approximately that time period to more modern as well, hone in on the complexities of immigrant and emigrant culture that define both traditional Irish music and the ever elusive “American Dream.”
Their concert, which will last from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. this Tuesday, March 28, should include a diverse set list of all the styles of Irish music listed above, as well as some surprises. Drawing from Irish, Irish American, Scottish, and Cape Breton cultures, Moloney and Tergis’ music spans a much wider breadth than the average listener might be able to pick up on. Their performance should be equally exciting as a sort of history lesson into the array of cultures that the two draw from and try to spread throughout the world with their music.