Carroll, Charron serenade audience with Irish songs

There wasn’t enough floor space for dancing, but the lively Irish music played by fiddler Liz Carroll created an upbeat atmosphere on Saturday night at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater.

During the performance, audience members had to contain themselves with restricted movement in their seats, which included swaying and smiling.

Carroll, a Grammy-nominated and American-born Irish fiddle player, performed for a full house at the theater during Lotus Festival this weekend.

Her accompanist, Jake Charron, added depth to the light and intricate movements of Carroll’s bow with his guitar and piano.

“Are you ready for some Irish music? Here we go!” she said, before launching into her first, fast-pace song.

She needed no stand or music in front of her to remember the thousands of notes she slid through in a matter of seconds.

Carroll is a Chicago native but was born to Irish parents.

She has received several national and international music awards, including the National Heritage Fellowship Award in 1994 and the Cumadóir TG4, Ireland’s most prestigious traditional music award, in 2011.

She is the first ever American-born composer to receive it.

Carroll mentioned during the show that Irish music differs from jigs that pick up the pace and energy of the room to hornpipes, which can be slower songs.

She picked her first, slower song because of its sentimental value.

“This is a tune that just ended up being called ‘Tinsel,’” she said. “My brother was a meticulous one when he was a young fellow, putting the tinsel on the tree one by one, and I had great joy in heading over and getting a fistful and throwing it at the tree, really to annoy him.

“It’s kind of a sentimental tune after all that.”

“Tinsel” did bring an air of calm that stilled the audience with its dulcet tones.

Her focus on the music suggested that she was reliving her childhood in that moment through her fiddle.

Carroll brought a range of emotion and pace to the performance, dancing between jaunty music and slower movements.

“I think that it would be something that a young man would hear growing up in the 18th century.

Those would be those sounds that he would hear when he was traveling the world on boat, or going off to war,” spectator Norbert Garvey said.

Garvey said he enjoys this kind of music and listens to the traditional style often.

Amber Garvey, standing next to him, thoroughly enjoyed the performance as well.

“That was really pretty,” she said. “It’s fun to just run around and pop in and hear something that you didn’t expect.”

Follow reporter Anicka Slachta on Twitter @ajslachta.