Michael Londra, The Real
Deal, Beyond Celtic: This
Weekend!
How It’s New York:
Michael Londra plays with Caitlin
Warbelow, who lives in NY and teaches advanced fiddle
at the Irish Arts Center!
How It’s Irish:
Michael Londra is from Wexford,
Ireland’s opera capital.
He sometimes teaches Irish
words to the crowd.
Michael Londra is in New Jersey this weekend!
His PBS
specials make you hungry to see the real deal (this
interview makes you hungry for pie).
On March 10, he’s at the Strand Theatre in Lakewood,
NJ, 400 Clifton Avenue.
On March 11, he’s at BergenPAC in Englewood, NJ, 30
North Von Brunt Street.
This interview was originally published in Irish
Examiner USA back in November, so ignore the bit about
sending pies to San Francisco.
You can, however,
still send cherry pies to me.
“I was always getting in trouble with my
teachers in Ireland for going down to
the pubs and singing fok songs, maybe
having a cigarette and the odd pint.
Luckily I gave up the cigarettes, but I
still do the pint.”
Of Pies, Music And Ireland
Gwen Orel Interviews Former
Riverdance On Broadway Singer
Michael Londra
The way to former Riverdance on Broadway singer
Michael Londra’s heart is through pie.
His favorites are coconut cream and banana cream.
Pecan pie is also good.
He was in South Carolina a while back, and one of the
PBS women had made a caramel pecan pie. “Holy mother
of god,” he sighed.
He’s in San Francisco in December, following a
Thanksgiving parade in Pittsburgh (send pies to the
Marines Memorial Theatre).
But connecting with his fans, including accepting
baked goods, is not just a by-product of fame to him.
It’s part of what he loves the most.
“I believe in giving 150%. When I’m meeting fans
I’m so grateful to them for giving up their
hard-earned dollars to come to a show, so
showing them some attention and gratitude does
not go astray.”
Unlike some of the other PBS Celtic specials, like
those of Celtic Thunder and Celtic Woman, Michael
likes to keep his show loose, and talk to the
audience.
“I invite them up. There’s a lot of banter, a
lot of jokes. I fancy myself as a comedian. In a
way, it’s kind of wrong for PBS, but luckily PBS
endorsed it and it’s aired 250 times.”
If you missed one of those airings, you can buy the
DVD
Beyond Celtic, and the CD of the same name; it just
came out in October.
It’s a fascinating blend of the PBS Celtic-theme show
specials and more serious classical.
In addition to Irish favorites like “The Water Is
Wide” and “Danny Boy” (his version on YouTube has had
5 million hits) it also includes some songs Michael
wrote himself, including “Star of Cartagena” and
“Brand New World.”
Smack in the middle of the special, there is some trad
from Frankie Gavin and De Dannan who perform a
controlled and exciting fast version of the Beatles’
“Here Comes the Sun.”
When I watched the DVD, and Frankie went into the
second jig in a jig set, I let out a “whoo.” Then I
realized, I am at home. Nobody is watching! Michael
laughs when I tell him that.
“Frankie is kind of one of my
music idols, and even though I
asked them to come, I never in a
million years thought that they
would. I was shaking in my boots
when he walked in.”
Michael gave the invitation, because Michael is not
only the star of the DVD, he is also its producer.
Unlike a lot of performers, he really enjoys the
background work.
“I’m used to bringing a lot of
people together. I know nearly
everybody in Irish music.”
But this is the first time since leaving Riverdance
that he’s gone back to being the front man and singer.
“I don’t know how comfortable with that I am!” he
says.
Asked if it’s hard to split his focus, to stand on
stage and perform without being distracted by a misaimed light, he says “not when you’re a control
freak!”
Of course, there are other producers involved in the
project as well.
Inviting Frankie Gavin is part of what Michael wants
to accomplish with Beyond Celtic.
He explains,
“I think North Americans have a
very washed down version of the
‘Celtic’ and the word ‘Irish’ and
what Irish music is. I certainly
am not authentic, I’m not the real
deal, but because of where I’ve
built this level of success I’m
able to show them what the real
deal is.”
He continues,
“People who are legends like
Frankie, often go unacknowledged
in America. He’s not as generic as
what people think Irish music is,
but that’s Irish music. I do that
in every concert; I always have
trad players, and always try to
teach a little bit of Gaelic to
the audience. I try to keep it
real, depart from shamrocks and
shillelaghs.”
Michael grew up in Wexford, known as the singing
capital of Ireland, and home to the Wexford Festival
Opera.As Michael explains, that “kind of filters
through to everybody in the town. Everybody loves
singing and they grow up with a classical taste.”
He
always woke up to his mother one of 12 siblings,
singing – usually some country, or Doris Day. His
father loved Elvis.
One of his own earliest memories of singing is singing
“Slaney Valley” for his grandmother.
“I have all sorts of influences, I’m a mixed bag,” he
said. His ipod has on it Kanye, Maura O’Connell, the
Dixie Chicks. “I’m all over the shop.”
He began Classical training at age 9, as a boy
soprano. He’d hear the American music in the morning,
then go and sing Verdi down the road. In the pub.
Wexford is a small town, only 18,000 people, and the
Classical vibe is everywhere. During the Wexford
Festival Opera in October, in addition to hearing
gorgeous music in the beautiful opera house with high
end seats, you could also go down to the pub, and you
might hear Paddy Murphy get up and sing “Slaney
Valley,” and then a Russian soprano might get up and
sing an aria by Gustav Mahler, and then an American
tenor will get up and sing a French art song, and then
someone would play a tune on the fiddle, Michael says.
It’s a fusion that is unique.
“Every child in Wexford had access
to that. A working class kid would
never have access to Classical or
opera in Ireland, so that gave me
a basis.”
Despite that, he never thought singing could be a
career, and worked as a Behavioral Therapist for ten
years when he left school.
There was only one music degree course with 30 people
per year for the whole country in the 80s.
It’s changed since then of course, and some of that
has to do with Riverdance.
“We never believed in ourselves as much as we do now,”
he said. “Since the onset of Riverdance and Enya and
U2 and the Corrs and the Celtic Tiger, it changed
everything. It made teenagers sit up and say, oh,
Irish dancing is sexy, or Irish singing is a way to
make money. As Riverdance we were the poster children
for that, luckily in me it all came together.”
It was only at age 30 when friends of his sat him down
and told him he had to go for it that he decied to
try. And he hasn’t stopped working since.
He appeared in the world premiere of the musical JFK,
then did the first national tour of Riverdance as a
lead singer, before doing it on Broadway, taking over
from Frank Kennedy.
He co-produced the soundtrack of Rent, and arranged
the music in the Broadway show.
His first album, Celt, was released in 15 countries
worldwide.
He created Radiocelt.com in 2003, an online Irish
music station.
His first Christmas album, Beyond the Star, came out
in 2009; it will shortly be re-released.
Michael also is an ambassador for global relief
organization Concern Worldwide, and uses his
performances to aid awareness of hunger and poverty in
Haiti.
In addition to Frankie Gavin and De Dannan, Beyond
Celtic also features a 16 piece orchestra and Ruth and
Joyce O’Leary of the group Sephira, and top Irish
dancers.
The blend of styles is seductive and smooth,
and Michael transitions easily from a pure Classical
style in “Magic Sara” (in Italian) to the art style of
“The Road Not Taken” to folky intensity in “Follow Me
Up to Carlow.”
“Star of Cartagena,” which he sings with Sephira, is a
very personal one, he says, written several years ago
in Spain.
He laughs,
“I was always getting in trouble
with my teachers in Ireland for
going down to the pubs and singing
fok songs, maybe having a
cigarette and the odd pint.
Luckily I gave up the cigarettes,
but I still do the pint.”
Introducing that Variety drives him. “Everything but
the dancing bears!” he says. Just as Riverdance helped
introduce some people to the whole concept of
traditional music, he hopes his productions will do
the same.
He has just asked Kathleen Keane, a whistle
player in Chicago, to join the tour in 2012.
“I think people get bored
listening to me all night! I’m not
the person singing a Frank Sinatra
song and telling you that it’s
Irish. I’m not really an Irish
tenor. I’m a tenor, and I’m Irish,
but if I were what they call an
Irish tenor, I’d have to be
singing mostly art songs.”
When he says he’s not authentic, he means he’s not
really trad. But he is really Irish.
Real Irish music is, and has been for a long time, a
blend of European songs, Classical music, American
“Communicating what’s at
home, what comes from home, is a major
passion for me,” he says.
pop, and trad.
I think he does. And it’s the real deal.
Pies can be sent to the Marines Memorial Theatre, 609
Sutter Street, San Francisco, California, 94102
Gwen Orel runs the blog and podcast New York Irish
Arts, newyorkirisharts.com. Her preferred pie is
cherry.
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