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| This is an excerpt from the print edition of Dirty Linen Magazine #107 (August / September 2003). the magazine is available on newsstands and by subscription. |
Fiddle virtuoso Eileen Ivers is known to some music fans due to the three years she spent touring with the mega-hit production “Riverdance” (1995-98). Her role in the show brought her a great deal of popular attention and critical acclaim. As Ivers noted, “ 'Riverdance' was, of course, fantastic. Tour the world for three years, you know…[it] definitely brought the music out to a lot of people.” This is an excerpt from an article in Dirty Linen #107 (Aug/Sept '03). Read the full text in the magazine, available via subscription or on newsstands and in bookstores.
Ivers' dedicated fans know, however, that she'd enjoyed a pretty spectacular career prior to her spell with “Riverdance.” Born of Irish immigrant parents and raised in the Bronx, Ivers started hauling in All-Ireland music awards at the age of 9 and accumulated 35 such awards by the time she was 19. She toured with Hall and Oates, Cherish the Ladies, and Green Fields of America and released two solo albums prior to joining “Riverdance.”
It turns out that there's life after “Riverdance,” as well. A good deal of life, and music, as a matter of fact. Ivers put together her current group, Immigrant Soul, and, in 2003, released the album Eileen Ivers and Immigrant Soul [Koch].
“At the end of '98, 'Riverdance' was going to Broadway, and the producers invited me to be a part of the show, but I'll be honest, I felt that I needed to leave,” Ivers recalled. “It was just the right time. I really wanted to put this group together and play with musicians from several countries and cultures. That felt like the right thing, and the challenging thing, to do. The timing was right. I'd had an interesting career up to that point, you know, but I wasn't ready to get stuck in any one thing.”
Immigrant Soul is a vehicle that allows Ivers to explore, among other influences, her interest in world music and rhythms. “Years ago, when I started playing, a man named Kimati Dinizulu was a major influence on my playing. He's a great South African percussionist who played on my first two solo albums for Green Linnet. Kimati and I played for about two years before that, and it just really clicked. And then later, in the 90s, I got really interested in Latin rhythms and certain Caribbean rhythms. Immigrant Soul is Afro, Caribbean, and Irish, but I also see it as American music, and I relate it all to Celtic and Celtic-influenced music as we know it. That's what I'm really attracted to and what makes sense to me as an Irish-American player. The music we do in Immigrant Soul has to respect Irish music. If it dilutes it in any way, I don't want to be a part of it. The music is that special.
“We've been touring the band since '99 and probably done over 150 dates a year, playing at performing arts centers and even with symphonies, so it's a great time right now.”
Ivers hasn't been afraid to push her Irish music in directions that intrigue her. She's hardly a purist. Rather, she tends to take her traditional training as the bedrock upon which she'll build whatever she hears.
“I wouldn't even know how to be a purist,” Ivers chuckled. “I mean, where do you draw your line and refuse to let the music move beyond that point? Do you go back to the days before the accordion was in the music or before chordal accompaniment came in the early part of the 1900s? Do you go back before the percussion element? It's very interesting.”
