'Eileen Ivers: An Irish Christmas' preview: Ivers blends old and new sounds in her Irish Christmas music

Published: Friday, December 10, 2010, 8:03 AM

By Marty Lipp/For The Star-Ledger

For fiddler Eileen Ivers, the idea of coming home for Christmas is not so straightforward.

The daughter of Irish immigrants, she was raised amid the crowded asphalt streets of the Bronx, but always heard stories of Christmastime in the Irish countryside of her parents.

When she began researching songs for what became her 2007 album “An Nollaig: An Irish Christmas,” she was a bit surprised at how rich the Irish holiday tradition is. She notes, for example, that “Deck the Halls” can be traced to an Irish hornpipe tune from the early 19th century.

“I love and respect so much of the Irish tradition,” she says. Still, she didn’t want to make a strictly traditional album.

She “Irish-ized” — her phrase — Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”; she says the composer was the “pop guy of his time” so she felt it was “okay to give him a little bit of rhythm.” Reflecting her American upbringing, she included “Christmas Time is Here” from that modern source of holiday spirit, “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

“I always love this time of year,” she says. So she created her own tradition of a short December tour, playing Irish-flavored Christmas songs.

Since the tour has become an annual undertaking, her holiday repertoire continues to expand. She mixes traditional and nontraditional songs, in moods ranging from reverent songs to high-energy. She also makes it a point to enlist local choirs and Irish dancers to perform with her. For her New Jersey shows this weekend, she will join forces with students of the Broesler School of Irish Dance in Westwood.

Ivers says the show sparks a different kind of audience response than her usual rocked-up concerts with her band, Immigrant Soul.

“It touches folks in a number of ways,” she says, adding that when she goes to the lobby afterward, “I get a lot hugs.”

The new world/old world hybrid nature of “An Nollaig: An Irish Christmas” is familiar territory for Ivers.

She studied fiddle as a child and went on to win the All-Ireland fiddling championship nine times (and also won once for banjo). Despite the honors she garnered as a young phenom, she pursued an academic career in mathematics. However, the music continued to pull on her and she went on to a varied career in music, playing with traditional Irish musicians as well as classical orchestras and jazz and rock stars.

Her breakthrough role came as part of the “Riverdance” extravaganza, where she stepped forward with her electric blue violin, Old Bluey, and dazzled audiences with Irish music played through electronic effects. After that, she got pegged as the Jimi Hendrix of the violin.

Like that popular show, she is firmly rooted in traditional Irish music, but spices up her repertoire with sounds from other cultures.

In recent years, Ivers’ parents built a home in County Mayo in western Ireland and she has had an opportunity to experience the holiday season there.

She says that, in contrast to the sometimes frantic holiday mood stateside, “People (in County Mayo) just wind down and get back to the simpler things.”

Eileen Ivers: An Irish Christmas

How much: $32-$52 for New Brunswick; call (732) 246-7469. $24-30 ($15 for children younger than 17) for Mahwah; call (201) 684-7844 or visit ramapo.edu/berriecenter.