What a Treat!

We've had a really rough month or so what with the puke plague, Ruth experiencing her first sickle cell crisis and, most recently, a complete mental health breakdown for one of the children all of which has Philip so out of whack he doesn't know what's coming and going...I've been ready for something really good to happen and tonight it finally did! Two weeks ago I went to the charity auction and got myself four tickets to any show at one of the local colleges. I decided to take the girls on a date to the Celtic Festival and...WOW! What a fantastic event!

The evening was emcee'd by a fellow named Charlie Zahm http://www.charliezahm.com/Home.html who is obviously a regular on the Celtic music circuit. His performance highlighted his beautiful baritone voice and his two sidekicks, a fiddler and a percussionist. I really enjoyed that, while he obviously has a lot of performance experience, he lead the audience through the evening with a tremendous amount of humility and joy. It's refreshing to see truly gifted individuals who aren't full of themselves. He was the perfect choice to play at host and his little trio really had Ruthie tapping her toes and clapping her hands.

The girls got their first look at a couple of new instruments as well. A 20 piece harp symphony graced the upstage area. They played an independent performance and were then joined by Charlie Zahm's singing and served as instrumentalists for one of the two dance troupes there. The first dance troupe brought along a piper so the girls got to hear some bagpipe music as well.

The dancers were wonderful as well. There were two groups - one Irish and one Scottish - and I must say we were most impressed by the Scottish group. They featured a boy about Ben's age who is the National Grand Champion and recently won 6th in Scotland competition as well. These kids were fantastic! They were so quick on their feet, in perfect synch with one another and I can't imagine the amount of discipline and hard work that has gone into their training. The girls enjoyed the dancers the most.

It always does my heart good to see good art and this truly was art at its finest. It was really wonderful that the whole event had a sense of local and ethnic pride which usurped the usual self-aggrandizing pride of most perfected performing artists. I was sure ready for a little break and this evening was a very pleasant surprise!