The up-tempo song, intricately woven with notes drawn from all ranges of the musical scale, elicits images of old Ireland and crowded pubs where musicians gather to play with friends and neighbors. And it offers a glimpse of the skill that has made Mulvihill a legend in the traditional Irish music scene.
‘‘That jig is real Irish-sounding,” said Mulvihill, 56, in a brogue that shows his Irish roots. ‘‘One of the most beautiful things on this planet, one of the best things about humanity is music.”
Mulvihill is easy with a laugh and a turn of a phrase. A morning conversation that starts with a friendly handshake and a cup of tea can meander into the early afternoon as talk reels effortlessly from thoughtful discussion of the state of Irish culture in America to ribald tales from the pubs he’s played in over his 30-year career. Get him talking about music, though, and the artist weighs in.
‘‘All music seems to paint this little picture and it goes through you and hits some part of your body and mind,” he said during a Friday interview in the home he shares with his wife, Abbie, and his 7-year-old daughter. ‘‘If you paint a picture, it’s on the canvas. But when you play music, where does it go?”
With Mulvihill and the bands he’s played with over the past three decades, the music has traveled the world and helped keep traditional Irish music alive.
He’s played his fiddle in sessions at pubs and dives ‘‘where the music’s best,” and in large festivals where he has the reputation for approaching traditional Irish music with the skill of a classical violinist.
Taught by his father, Martin Mulvihill, an Irishman from County Limerick and a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellow, Brendan Mulvihill began touring Ireland in the early 1970s, learning songs, crafting his style and earning awards.
In 1975, he moved back to New York, the city his family had called home since moving from England in 1965. New York, with its rich Irish and musical heritage, served as a launching point for Mulvihill and his three-piece band, The Irish Tradition. But Washington, D.C., would become the band’s home.
‘‘We came to D.C. in 1975. Someone said there was a chance for a gig [at The Dubliner]. ‘It might only last a few weeks.’ But a few weeks turned into a few years,” Mulvihill said.
The Irish Tradition, with accordion player Billy McComiskey and singer⁄guitarist Andy O’Brien, became the house band at The Dubliner. The band was also featured regularly at The Irish Times in Washington, D.C.
Mulvihill stayed in the Washington, D.C., area after the band broke up, performing with other musicians and organizations dedicated to promoting Irish culture through music and dance.
During the heyday of traditional Irish music, Mulvihill played for President Bill Clinton and first lady Hillary Clinton in 1998 for the PBS broadcast ‘‘Performance at the White House,” as well as at the Kennedy Center and local, national and international festivals.
He earned a 2005 Maryland Traditions Folk Arts and Culture Apprenticeship Award for teaching traditional Irish fiddle playing. And last month, the Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, an organization that promotes Irish dance, music, culture and language worldwide, inducted him into the Mid-Atlantic Region Hall of Fame.
‘‘His power, command of the instrument, knowledge of the music ... he’s incomparable,” said Silver Spring’s Jesse Winch, a member of the CCE who plays with Mulvihill in The Irish Inn Mates, a four-piece band. ‘‘[Traditional Irish music] transports you, takes over your consciousness and puts you in another world. Brendan does that more than anyone else.”
Sean Culkin, director of the Silver Spring-based Culkin School of Traditional Irish Dance, says having Mulvihill in the area ensures a high standard of music for his fiddle students and for young Culkin school step dancers who perform with Mulvihill at ceilis, or dances, and Irish cultural events.
‘‘He’s not just keeping it to himself, which is what music’s all about,” he said.
Still, Mulvihill said he now finds fewer opportunities to play. There’s the sessions at Nanny O’Brien’s in The District and the Irish Inn at Glen Echo, and gigs at The Old Brogue in Great Falls, Va.
But when he does play, Winch said, ‘‘It’s like riding a wave. You get on the Brendan magic carpet and ride away.”
The awards are nice, he says, but for Mulvihill, like his father before him, teaching others how to play fiddle and keeping the sounds of traditional Irish music alive is his greatest legacy.
‘‘It’s not about yourself,” he said. ‘‘When you reach a certain destination, it’s what you can give to people.”
