Dervish breathes new life into old music

The Irish band Dervish performs in the Music Haven concert series Sunday at Central Park in Schenectady (photo provided).

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Cathy Jordan is a musician.

But as lead singer for traditional Irish band Dervish, she’s also an explorer.

“We have a new album that came out called ‘The Thrush in the Storm’ and it’s loaded with traditional songs and some covers,” said Jordan, whose Dervish will play Sunday on the Agnes Macdonald Music Haven Stage in Schenectady’s Central Park.

Dervish

WHEN: 7 p.m. Sunday

WHERE: Music Haven Concert Series, Central Park, Schenectady

HOW MUCH: Free

MORE INFO: www.musichavenstage.org

“We try to find music that might otherwise have been lost, so we spend time trolling through old records and archives and so on, trying to find things that haven’t appeared anywhere else for a while and breathe new life into them — make sure they’re kind of catapulted into the next generation of musicians.”

Dervish expects to bring new life to the free concert, the finale in the summer’s six-show Music Haven Concert Series. The show, with guests Matt and Shannon Heaton, begins at 7 p.m.

Dervish, from Ireland’s County Sligo, formed in 1989. The band features Brian McDonagh on mandola and mandolin; Liam Kelly on flute and whistles; Tom Morrow on fiddle and viola; Shane Mitchell on accordion; and Michael Holmes on bouzouki. Jordan also plays the bodhran and the bones.

Jordan, who joined Dervish in 1991, also knows her Irish music history.

“There are actually three elements that are prevalent in Irish music,” she said in an phone interview from Alberta, Canada. “There’s goltraí, geantraí and suantraí.

“Goltraí means it’s so sad it makes you want to cry,” Jordan added. “Geantraí means it’s so energetic it makes you want to dance. And suantraí means it’s so calming it makes you want to sleep.”

Jordan loves all three styles.

“We probably have more use for the geantraí element, the faster, upbeat music at festivals and clubs,” she said. “People want to dance more so than they want to sleep or cry, but when all the elements are present — even in the small amounts of the sad and melancholy — the happiest often works even better.”

So Jordan and Dervish are planning a happy show for Music Haven.

“We’ll have elements of all three, mostly geantraí,” she said. “This will be a happy show. Everyone usually leaves very moved by the whole experience and were glad they were there.”

Reach Gazette reporter Jeff Wilkin at 395-3124 or at [email protected] or @jeffwilkin1 on Twitter. His blog is at www.dailygazette.com/weblogs/wilkin.