Saratogan Article 202

©The Saratogan. All Rights Reserved

27th August 2002

Tenors in fine tune, individually, at SPAC
By Judith White

Good tenors can be more scarce than parking places along Broadway in August, but the luck 'o the Irish brought three singers with magnificent ranges and capabilities on Sunday to the stage at Saratoga Performing Arts Center. The Irish Tenors, on tour throughout the summer in the U.S., sang a wide range of Irish and American songs to a capacity audience Sunday. It seemed many in the audience were on a familiar basis with the singers and the music.

Many of the songs performed by tenors Ronan Tynan, Anthony Kerns and Finbar Wright are included in the trio's CD, ''The Very Best of the Irish Tenors.''

The program at SPAC included Irish folk songs, ballads about the beauty and struggles of their homeland, a couple of jigs and even a pub favorite performed on a regular basis at The Parting Glass on Lake Avenue in Saratoga Springs.

Each tenor had ample solo opportunity to display his individual vocal qualities, but the three sang together for many of the songs, particularly toward the end of the two-hour program.

The show ended with two encores, including a bitter-sweet, heart-felt rendition of ''Danny Boy,'' with the three voices soaring with accuracy and simplicity to the high notes.

It's worth noting that the word ''trio'' is used nowhere in the Irish Tenors' publicity materials, and the omission is appropriate. They are three enormously talented soloists whose voices complement but never really join as one.

Vocal holds and exits weren't well coordinated, and each tenor extended his own sound to its own boundaries with little regard for either the other two or the orchestral accompaniment.

A local pick-up orchestra conducted by James Cavanaugh and headed by concertmaster Michael Emory opened the show with an overture to set the cultural tone of the program.

Saratoga Springs percussionist Cynthia Lee struck celtic rhythms on a traditional bodhran, and David Martenson played a rollicking tuba solo in ''Kerry Bear's Picnic,'' an Emerald Isle-sparked arrangement of a favorite Teddy outing.There's magic much bigger than leprechauns in the combination of three glorious voices singing notes written in the sky-line of vocal possibility, and the audience cheered the tenors on, calling to them by their given names.

The tall, extroverted Ronan brought a hush to the audience with the first solo of the night: ''Last Rose of Summer.''

Born with a disability that led to the amputation of both his lower legs at age 20, Ronan walks -- and dances -- with prostheses. Sunday, he dedicated ''Scorn Not His Simplicity'' to parents of physically or mentally challenged children. His only reference to his own personal challenge was a comment about his adaptability.

''I could go with a woman six-foot-five, or one five-foot-six,'' he said to resounding applause.

Kerns raised the vocal tenor ante with a more traditional, ringing tone in the lovely folk song, ''She Moved Through the Fair.''

Wright, a former Roman Catholic priest who discovered his solo career later, sang ''I'll Take You Home Again Maggie,'' his voice crowned in a traditional golden tenor tone. He later grinned his way into a non-Irish entry, ''South of the Border.''

It was Tynan who pulled the music into an entertainment package, responding to audience requests and interacting in a light-hearted way with Kerns beside him, often introducing dance steps to the mix.

When the trio sang the standard, raucous ''Whiskey in the Jar,'' it was Ronan who hooted the music into pure Irish fun.

It was also Ronan who stopped in traffic several months back on a Cape Cod highway to risk his own life while coming to the aid of an accident victim.

Ronan, a medical doctor with a specialization in orthopedic sports injuries, was the first disabled person ever admitted to the National College of Physical Education in Ireland. In May, he pulled himself beneath an overturned vehicle lifted by bystanders, to offer immediate aid to the fatally injured victim.