Forest Beach Ceili At Johnson String

The newly formed Forest Beach Ceili will perform at Johnson String Instrument in Falmouth on Friday, November 28, at 5 PM. Ceili is an Irish word with several translations in English, it can be a dance or a dance band or simply a party and this is the idea behind Forest Beach Ceili: music that is joyous and fun.
The band made a splash when they premiered at the Icons Irish Music Festival in Canton earlier this year. “Their music has a magical mixture of drive, lift, and swing,” said festival coordinator Stephanie Gant, “You’ll find many bands with one or two of those components, but the combination of all three is just so exciting.”
Band members are Eugene Clancy on vocals, bass, and guitar; his daughter Rosemary on fiddle and “a wee bit of banjo”; Greg Johnson on guitar, Clayton March on fiddle, banjo, and flute; and Mark Oien on fiddle.
Mr. Clancy grew up in County Armagh, Northern Ireland with eight siblings. His musical sensibilities were honed in the front parlor of the Clancy home in the small village of Charlemont. It was there that local musicians would gather to play and Gene and his brothers Pat and Brendan took up their instruments and formed a ceili band playing at Irish country dances and concerts throughout Ireland. In l960, the brothers left Ireland to tour the United States as The Irish Ramblers. The brothers Pat, Eugene and Brendan released the album “The Patriot Game” on Electra Records in l963, and performed throughout the United States and Canada. Mr. Clancy lives in Chatham and New York.
Like her father, Ms. Clancy considers the family home a most influential source of music. Sessions at the house were common, and she knew from an early age that she wanted to play fiddle. Ms. Clancy started classical lessons in third grade at the local elementary school and continued playing classical music throughout high school. Her true passion was Irish music, and she began playing in a ceili band where she learned the tunes and style from players such as Mike Melanophy, Felix Dolan and Kevin Kileen.
Ms. Clancy has played with The Clancy Tradition for the past 20 years and recently started playing with “The Right Out Louds,” a rock band based in New York. She is now living in Massachusetts, splitting her time between Chatham and Boston, where she is studying violin making at the North Bennett Street School.
Greg Johnson, of Mashpee, began playing guitar as a youngster. In 1975, he helped form the Raw Honey Progressive Bluegrass Band as bassist. After a few years pent learning to play fiddle and tenor banjo he started Coliope, a contra dance band, and played in the pub band Dublin Green and the folk ensemble Ory Boggy.
A classically trained musician, Clayton March, of Dennis, is a graduate of New England Conservatory. His musical focus over the last 10 years has been traditional music. He is a regular session player and leader on Cape Cod, playing fiddle, banjo, mandolin, or flute. He also plays clarinet in Polka Dan’s Beet Box Band. Mr. March teaches music at West Bend Music Studios in West Dennis which he founded earlier this year.
Mark Oien, of Sandwich, began playing Suzuki violin at the age of five under the tutelage of the Oullette sisters of New Bedford. Although much of the music he learned at that time was classical, he was always more concerned with any ornamentation that could make his music unique. Over the years he was exposed to numerous fiddle styles by violin teachers, his mother, an elementary music teacher herself, and records owned by his family. In his early teens he developed a specific interest in the Irish fiddle style and started mimicking those recordings.
He went to his first Irish session while in high school and was taken under the wing of the session leader, Bill Black, and encouraged to attend every session he could. After high school Mark attended Boston University. In Boston he honed his fiddle style by frequenting sessions led by Tommy Peoples and Larry Reynolds, and by taking workshops from Seamus Connolly. After four years he moved back to Cape Cod, where he has flourished as a fiddle player. He remains a fixture in the Cape Cod Irish music scene by leading sessions and playing in bands.
Tickets are $15 at the door. Johnson String Instrument is in Queens Byway at 49 North Main Street in Falmouth. Call 508-495-5551 for more information.