Irish fiddle
Bronx, New York
Photo: Joseph Killeen
Eileen Ivers is one of America’s preeminent Irish fiddlers. Noted Irish American writer Frank McCourt sums up Ivers’s genius eloquently: “Eileen is to Irish music as Michael Flatley is to Irish dance—a pioneer, an innovator, a universalist. She grew up in boom-box Bronx and she carries sounds from childhood that are surely embedded in her musical soul…. Like Whitman she contains multitudes, and cannot be contained by Irish music itself.”
Eileen Ivers was born in 1965 to parents who had emigrated from County Mayo, Ireland, to the Bronx, New York, and was raised in the Irish American community there. She began to play the fiddle at the age of eight and went on to study under the watchful eye and tutelage of master Irish fiddler and teacher Martin Mulvihill, a National Heritage Fellow originally from Limerick. Ivers has won nine All-Ireland fiddle titles in her illustrious career, winning the first seven of those titles between ages eleven and nineteen, an astounding accomplishment for anyone in such a short time, let alone a teenager. For good measure, she’s also won a title on tenor banjo, too. In total, she holds more than 30 All-Ireland medals.
Ivers has built on the musical promise of her early years, promoting traditional Irish music as well as extending the range of fiddling in new and exciting ways. She was a founding member of the traditional ensemble Cherish the Ladies in 1985 and played a significant role in their early success. Eileen has performed with such popular musicians as Sting, Hall and Oates, The Chieftains, and Patti Smith, headlined concerts with major symphony orchestras ranging from the Boston Pops to the London Symphony, and been featured on movie soundtracks including Gangs of New York. She starred for three years in the smash show Riverdance, where she brought down the house with her outstanding artistry—and her electric-blue fiddle. As the daughter of immigrants raised in a rich multicultural environment like the Bronx, she has long been fascinated with the immigrant experience, and exploring how Irish music in America has interacted with the music of other cultures.
Despite her fame, Ivers retains the modesty of the traditional musician. “We’ve all been brought up, all of us,” she says, “with the ethic that we’re playing melodies that have been passed on for hundreds and hundreds of years. You learn them and play them through your lifetime and then you pass them along. But at the end of the day, it’s the music that’s the star, not any of us.” In 2019, her life came full circle when her alma mater, Iona College, awarded her a Doctor of Arts, citing her “lifelong commitment to innovation, excellence and deep dedication to bringing people together through music.”
Normally backed by a stellar band of accordion and keyboard, bass, guitar, and percussion, for this performance Eileen will be coming to Richmond live from her living room—a trimmed-down set of just her and her fiddle.