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Friday 16th November 2007

Lend me three tenors: Irish trio to show off pipes in Bentonville
By Steve Schmidt

Everything is bigger in Texas, especially through the eyes of an Irishman.

Where Matthew Gilsenan comes from, a 500-acre farm is a sizable piece of property, so he was floored when he found out that it takes about 80 acres to sustain one animal in Texas.

"The general size of the country has completely blown us away. Our country is the entire size of a one part of a state,"said Gilsenan, whose native land has close to the same square miles as Indiana, and is about one-eighth the size of Texas.

"It's incredible. It's so amazingly different. No. 1, the weather is beautiful."

While talking on a cell phone on a tour bus headed to Terrell, Texas, Gilsenan said that Ireland would currently probably be about 45 degrees and rainy. This was not the case on his sun-splashed tour bus.

When Gilsenan and his fellow Celtic Tenors, James Nelson and Daryl Simpson, head to the Arend Arts Center in Bentonville for a 2 p.m. performance on Sunday, they will be wrapping their third U.S. tour after forming in 1999 in Dublin, and signing an international record deal in 2000. In a show that should include at least 25 songs, the group will be joined by soprano Donna Malone and pianist Danny Sheridan, both of whom are from Ireland as well.

Although the group has performed for years in such exotic locations as Argentina, New Zealand and Bahrain, Gilsenan said it still "really blows us away how many people come to our shows."

The group's global appeal may be from its variety of music which features everything from classical, folk, pop and traditional Irish songs. The group's latest album," Remember Me,"which was released in 2005, has everything from the most classic of Irish songs," Danny Boy,"to a unique version of Air Supply's hit song," All Out of Love."

"The thing about our music is that it kind of works at a universal level,"Gilsenan said. "There's a few things we can't get away from, try as we might. We're more of band that does songs that we like."

Gilsenan called the dynamics of his group "a tenor democracy,"adding that all three voices have a similar range. He said that his voice borders on being a lyric tenor, where as Nelson has more a "heavier, meatier"voice and Simpson, who replaced original member Niall Morris in June 2006, is equipped with a lighter and higher sound.

The formation of the group is a living example of the change that has taken place in Gilsenan's home land, the tenor said. The bitterness between Catholics and Protestants camps in Ireland and Northern Ireland 10 to 15 years ago would have kept Gilsenan, a Catholic from the southern part of the country, from ever making music with Nelson, a Protestant from the south, or Simpson, a Protestant from Northern Ireland. Now, that is not the case.

"When I grew up you didn't speak to a Protestant,"Gilsenan said. "That's one of things we're really proud about. ... We're all working together."

Gilsenan then recalled the lyrics of one of the group's songs," Song For Ireland": "Dreaming in the night/I saw a land where no one has to fight"

"And,"he said," we're starting to see that happen."