On Wednesday night my best concert-going pal and I headed north to the Coatesville Cultural Society to see David Power, who plays the tin whistle and the uillean pipes (pronounced "illin"). The show, part of the Coatesville Traditional Irish Music Series, was great, and it was amazing to watch David play the complicated instrument: he had to pump the bellows with his elbows, play the keys on the drones with the edge of his left hand, and use the extraordinarily long fingers on both hands to play the rapid notes on the vertical flute-like part, called the chanter. It's no wonder he plays with his eyes closed.
The story of David's chanter, known as the "Eighteen Moloney," was fascinating: it was made in 1835 and has been passed down through a series of famed Irish musicians.
I had never been to the Coatesville Cultural Society, which is at 143 East Lincoln Highway. The theater space where David played is essentially a black cavernous box that has that marvelous heady smell of theaters worldwide, a combination of paint and lumber.
In the audience were Mal Whyte, who gave David the Eighteen Moloney back in 2003; Frank Dalton and Emily Fine of Embreeville, who for the past ten years have been producing the Irish music series; and local high-school student Keegan Loesel, half of the Irish music duo the Ladeens, whom we saw performing at West Grove Meeting in January (Keegan also plays the uilleann pipes).
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