Arcanadh Review May 1st, 2004 Aidan O'Hara spent an afternoon recently with three members of the exciting new group, Arcanadh. We originally started out as Arcana, which means the arcane elements of something, the secret or mysterious things." The speaker is Maria Corbet, singer and harp player with the talented all-singing, all-musical group, Arcanadh. "We were playing in America and had decided on Arcana as a band name. One day we went into a record shop and saw about twelve albums by a band named, believe it or not, Arcana. But we liked the name so we just added a dh to it to get a pun on canacih. That's the Gaelic word meaning 'singing', as you know, and that's how we got the name we now use. Accompanying Maria the day we met were her fellow-group members, brother and sister, Mags and Martin Gallen from Castleblaney, Co. Monaghan. All three of them give mock groans and laughed when Maria announced. "I'm a teacher, we're all teachers!", because when they get anything written aboul them, they said, they're referred to as 'The Six Singing Teachers' or some such term. Maria says through her laughter, "We're trying to avoid that." She has a great laugh. I then said that I, too, had been a teacher in an earlier life, much earlier. Maria suddenly says, "We're not ashamed of being teachers y'know. It's just that we dont want to be branded." So I tell them their secret, our secret, is safe with me. And we all laugh again. The other members are, Colm Breathnach, Ring, Co Waterford, and his wife, Sinead Gibson from Gortahork in the Donegal Gaeltacht, and Fiona Walsh a native of Bohola, Co. Mayo. Each one can take the lead in a song, and collectively they make a gloriously harmonious sound. They were winners of the "Trophée la Bolée des Korrigans", the Best Band Award in L'Orient Festival in Brittany in 2002. They now have a big French following, and because these fans and thleir many friends at home in Ireland and in America kept pestering them for a recording, they have recently brought out their first CD, Soundings. The album has twelve tracks consisting of ten well-chosen songs and a couple of instrumental medleys, and it will make their eager admirers very happy indeed. I predict an even greater following for Arcanadh when it reaches a wider audience. The first song is Éire grá mo chroí, which in spite of the Irish Language title, is actually in English. It's a lovely song, which they heard sung by friends in the Ring Gaeltacht in Waterford. Another song in Gaelic, Cé chuirfidh tú liom is also a Ring song, and it's beautifully sung a cappella. And here's the song by English folk singer. Kate Rusby. William and Davey, Martin chips in, "a good lively song." And he goes on to give us an insight on how the group handles an arrangement. "Now as for the arrangement in this song, Mags has the first verse, Colm the second, then Sinead, then myself and Colm in the fourth verse,  followed by an instrumental bridge, and so on like that, vith Maria and Fiona, on a verse each, more instrumental, then, next terse all voices only, and finally all together in a six-part harmony with instruments. One can sense the excitement and the fun they have in working out harmonies and arrangements. Anyone who has ever been in a singing group can readily share this great feeling of pleasure.  It's just that rarely does one find a group with six excellent individual voices, which blend so well in beautiful harmony. They just love talking about who does what and where in each song and it's obvious they're reliving both the recalled satisfaction of working out their harnionies, and then the pleasurable end result of a nicely constructed multi-part song arrangement. Other songs include, Anachic Gordon which they heard sung by Mary Black, another Kate Rusby song. Lel the Cold Wind Blow. "And the way we do it," says Martin, "is the least traditional of all the songs on the CD." And just to give some indication or the variety, there's also Lord Franklin, The Lowlands of Holland, Droichead no nDeor, a lovely Donegal emigration song, and also from the same county, an Arranmore island variant of Ceol a' Phiobaire in which Fiona does a bit of lilting.   How did they all meet? Not surprisingly, itwas then they were studying at St Patrick's College for teachers in Drumcondra, Dublin, and that's where they discovered their shared interest in singing and making music together. "I play the harp," Maria says. I learned it in Mount Sackville secondary school from Sr. Eugene McCabe." And did she grow up in a musical family? "My mother doesn't have a note in her headm and my father would have musical people in his family but they wouldn't be trained. My siblings were trained in classical music."   Maria also took lessons, in the piano accordion and learned to play jigs and reels. "Growing up. I always loved folk singing. Mary Black was one of my favourite singers. Martin Callen and his sister, Mags, took music lessons when thev were kids. "I play the guitar in the group. said Martin, and a little bit of bodhran, and I sing, as well." Mags said she left it a bit late to take up the traditional fiddle, which happened only when she went to St Pat's, But you'd think she had been at it all her life. so fluid and true is her fiddle playing style. Maria says she and Fiona played in a band called Gealtra for a couple of years, and played at Lorient twice. Martin said that Arcanadh has been together as a group for three years, playing mostly in the summers for two or three months. "We've played in the States and at various festivals. At the end of last August we decided to put our new album together. It isn't easy finding the time needed to make an album the way we'd like to do it, because it's outside of work and we've all got other jobs. It's a question of traveling and recording on weekends." Maria added that she and Fiona work in Dublin, and the others are all teaching in Donegal, so the six of them had quite a lot of travelling to do for the recording which was done in Belfast. And speaking of Belfast, the trio were eager to point out that they would be playing the St.Patrick's night concert at the Belfast Waterfront Hall. Martin continued: "We've had a very good reaction to our music everywhere we've played. We were delighted when we were asked to perform at the Irish Music Magazine Awards last October We got a good reception there, too. So we're hoping we get a good reaction to our new album." Maria jumped in: "The album is important in promoting ourselves. of course, and as we said, we're probably better known in France than are are in Ireland. They're hounding us at this stage because our aim had been to release it last November. I put to them the point that Ireland seems to breed good groups and wondered if they saw themselves and their music to be different in any way. Maria prefaced her response by saying that she hoped what she was going to say didn't sound like she was boasting. "But I'llsay it anyway. To quote a friend of my sister's: she said that we're the thing that's missing in Irish music. We have 'our own sound' vocally, and that's why we don't really pursue the tunes side of things all that much, because we're constantly trying to avoid falling into a rut of 'this is all we do'. So we're constantly changing our arrangements and harmonies, but at the same time, we have a very distinctive sound." So when I suggested that maybe there are Arcanadh sounds as opposed to just an Arcanadh sound', Martin gave a very definite view of how he and possibly the group as a whole see themselves and their music. "It's a distinctive sound," he said, "but it's a very easy-listening sound. We would appeal to a theatre kind of an audience, like we had at Lorient, for example, where two or three hundred people relaxed and seemed to really  enjoy our music. Thats our kind of venue." Martin's sister, Mags added, "I suppose there are to a certain extent, bands or groups that are all tunes with just some vocalists. We, on the other hand... we're all songs with a few tunes thrown in. On our CD, for example, nearly every track will have a different vocalist, because each of us is good on "lead'. And I suppose, too, that it could be true that because each song treatment is so different, people might not be able to say, oh that's Arcanadh - because of the different sounds. The mix of male and female voices helps to create those differences. And as well as that, I suppose to a certain extent, the traditional way of singing songs is your melody, and that's it. We have changed that, maybe to lots of people's liking, maybe not so to others who are purists. We have a lot of harmonies and arrangements, different instruments, including piano and harp. We'd be an easy listening group, not one that would rock a joint. It would be more that of a quiet theatre, concert type band." So, if the CD does extremely well and realises all their hopes, what happens then? "First of all," Martin responds, we've a lot more music in us, apart from what we've put down (on disc), so we're going to have to get that music out of us. I think our aim at this point in time (of recording) was to put the music down, because family and friends were after us for a recording. So, if the CD does well, I think we certainly would like to tour with it and take time out." So there you have it, folks, the members of Arcanadh see their folk/ballad/trad singing as 'easy listening', and while that kind or openness and frankness may have some people spluttering, it really does reflect the group's honest view that they feet that their music has the widest possible appeal. And I just think they may well be right, because with their songs in English and Gaelic, and the dance tune medleys, they will attract a very wide audience indeed. Their vocal arrangements are varied and venturesome while at the same time remaining accessible (a word one of them used) to all categories of music lovers. Very easy to listen to 'and most pleasing to the ear'.   « Return to News