David Hills of David Hills Photography
Celtic kids: The Bog Band features fiddlers galore -— and Patrick Armstrong of Bethesda on flute.
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Bogged down? Not Mitch Fanning.
The Silver Spring music teacher is the leader of The Bog Band, a group of 22 young musicians from all over Montgomery County drawn together by their love for — and proficiency at — Celtic music. Saturday evening it's "Two Bog Night" at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, where they'll unveil their second CD "On Their Own Turf," and throw a ceili with Irish dancers and professional musicians from the local Celtic music scene.
What they've learned so far, since that day in September 2004 when Fanning agreed to form a fiddle club for five of his students at Bethesda's Waldorf School, is considerable.
"Most everybody has been studying for three or four years at least," says Fanning. "The band members have a combination of classical training and Celtic, plus a few kids who've been brought up on strictly Irish fiddle repertoire."
"The Bog Band decided to concertize to raise money," says Fanning. "The first CD was an outgrowth of that. That's how it started."
The project's success inspired other young musicians. And it led to a mini-renaissance whereby the D.C. area's Celtic musicians (Fanning, his Bog Wanderers bandmate Jesse Winch, local piper and harpist Rick Kemper, famed fiddlers Brendan Mulvihill and Brian Conway) started sharing their musical knowledge with the Bog Band kids.
Fanning, who has been a professional musician and a business development manager for a Web development company as well as a teacher of strings, says he didn't decide to study violin until fourth grade.
"I guess I showed an aptitude for it," he adds. "My teacher recommended I study with Ralph Wade, the concertmaster of the Buffalo Philharmonic."
Nowadays, in music as in so many things, kids start young. Mike McKenna's son Gabriel was Suzuki-trained from an early age; he was the original Bog Boy, the student who first asked Fanning about getting a fiddle club together.
"After that, we said, ‘We have this group of talented boys here, why not have them form a band, raise money for the class trip?'" McKenna says. "They raised money for an eighth-grade trip and a seventh-grade trip, too. We were performing at different locations and other kids and parents were coming up, saying ‘Can I join the band?'
"Now we have 22 kids from 12 schools included in the mix. We have girls joining, a mandola player, a piper, a bodhran [player] — and we're searching around for more variety, for kids to play guitar or any other suitable instrument."
McKenna, who lives in Chevy Chase, says he's excited about Saturday's CD release, which features not just Pete Moss and the Bog Band, but also Fanning's adult group, The Bog Wanderers, plus dancers from the Silver Spring-based Culkin School of Traditional Irish Dance and Celtic Thunder vocalist Laura Murphy.
"I just love the music," he says happily.
Overtaken
Patrick Armstrong was 6 the first time he visited Ireland.
"I've always kind of liked the music," says Patrick, 15. "It interested me. I thought, ‘Why not try this?'"
His mother's grandfather had emigrated from Achill Island in County Mayo, and Patrick, who has studied piano and music theory, was inspired first by his mom's Chieftains CDs and then by Josie McDermott.
"Paddy Maloney, the leader of the Chieftains, his mind for arrangements is amazing," Patrick says. "And Josie McDermott, he's still one of my favorites."
Patrick, a junior at Gonzaga College High School, lives in Bethesda with his family.
"One day we went to the Irish Inn at Glen Echo," he says. "We heard there was Irish music there."
Soon Patrick, a quick study on the pennywhistle, was studying flute with Jesse Winch. Then Fanning, a regular performer at the Glen Echo pub, invited him to join the Bog Band as its sole flautist.
"I love it; it's my whole life," says Patrick, who spent time this summer at the world-renowned Willie Clancy Summer School in Miltown Malbay, County Clare and who wants to do an Irish Studies degree in college with a minor in music. "Everything I do comes back to Irish music. It's completely taken me over."
Samantha Suplee doesn't go that far.
"It's one of the main things I do," she admits. "I play tunes every day, take violin lessons, go to sessions.
"I started taking classical [violin] lessons with Mitch when I was 9. One day he just up and introduced me to Irish music."
Suplee, a junior at Albert Einstein High School in Kensington, has been a Bog Band member for three years. Although she recently added the uilleann pipes to her musical repertoire — studying with piper-harpist Rick Kemper — her plans transcend playing music, however much she enjoys it.
"I've always wanted to have a career helping out the environment," she says. "I love math and science, and I want to come up with concrete solutions to the climate crisis."
After spending 10 days this summer at a fiddle camp in Ireland, Samantha became acutely aware of the challenges traditional Irish music sets, particularly for Americans.
"I used to think I was pretty good at playing tunes," she says. "When I got [to Ireland], I realized there were other people much more in tune with the music, the language."
Back home, Samantha noticed that "people have misconceptions about Irish music," and she's hoping that by being part of the scene here, she can dispel those.
"The way Saturday's concert is set up — different people playing at different times, coordinating with dancers — it's complicated, but it brings more texture," she says.
"As for Irish music," she adds, "I want to travel the world, show people how great it is.
"I want it to be part of my life."
Two Bog Night begins at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, 4301 East-West Highway, Bethesda. Tickets are $20, $10 for students and $40 for families at the door; advance tickets are $15, $7 for students and $35 for families. Call 202-352-1327 or visit www.bogband.com.
