Daily Gazette, Schenectady, NY

DAILY GAZETTE
Schenectady, NY

9th May 2009

LISTEN FOR THE JOY
By Jeff Wiklins

Photo: Barry Sloan

Karl Scully is supposed to be the ladies’ man in The Irish Tenors.

The description brings a deep laugh from the affable, classically trained singer.

“That’s what they say?” he asked Friday, during a promotional appearance inside the North Greenbush studios of public broadcaster WMHT. “Am I enough of a ladies’ man to be happy? No. Am I a ladies’ man, really? No, I’m sure I’m not. I think the other two guys are trying to distract peoples’ attention.”

The other two guys are Finbar Wright and Anthony Kearns. And all three men will attract attention on Thursday, June 4, when The Irish Tenors perform at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. The 8 p.m. show will benefit the Adirondack Saratoga Chapter of the American Red Cross, and will be the celebrated trio’s only U.S. concert this summer.

“We had not planned to do a summer tour at all this year,” said the Limerick-born Scully, 30, currently living in New York City. “Instead, we’re recording a CD that’s going to be coming out October or November for Christmas.”

Eileen Reardon, executive director of the Adirondack Saratoga chapter, said her organization first contacted the Tenors in 2007, inquiring about their availability for the group’s annual Celtic Music and Arts Festival at West Mountain in Glens Falls.

Benefit concert

The guys couldn’t make the late summer date. “They said, ‘How about if we do a benefit concert for you?’” Reardon said. “From there, we had a conversation with the Saratoga Performing Arts Center ... they weren’t lengthy conversations, it was immediate, I think, understanding on everybody’s part that this was something special.”

Scully and his friends are happy to donate for the Red Cross.

“It’s an association that’s always there at every disaster, and people don’t question where they get their money from,” he said. “Especially now, in this economic situation, the Red Cross is needed.”

The Tenors have been performing since 1998. Scully joined in 2006, becoming the permanent replacement for the departed Ronan Tynan.

Scully laughs again when he talks pressure that came with stepping into Tynan’s black tuxedo and white shirt.

“The guys made it very easy,” he said. “I didn’t have time to think about it, to tell you the truth.
Ronan had been saying he wanted to pursue a solo career for quite a while, so they were interviewing people to replace him for about two years. In the meantime, John McDermott had stepped in for a short while to help out.

“I was at the interviews, and they said, ‘You’ve got the job, congratulations, you have a show to do in 10 days. Here’s the music, go for it.’”

Scully has been going strong as the outfit’s youngest member. He’s happy to sing the occasionally mournful Irish songs, but said people should also listen for joy behind the verses.

“Yes, there is an awful lot of sadness in Irish history,” Scully said. “There’s an awful lot of mournful mentality, and there is a lot of music that’s quite sorrowful, remembering sorrowful things. But the great thing about Irish people is that it’s always put on with a happy, joyful twist. I think we’re actually quite a happy people, deep down, and nothing really gets us down at all, no matter how bad it is.”

Scully believes most Irish music is built around cheerful words and musical notes.

“Which is why people enjoy it so much,” he said. “It sounds like it’s happy, but if you really analyze it, there are undercurrents of much deeper things going on.”

International Roots

The Tenors all share Irish heritage — with a few differences.

“I’m more the international one, Finbar is from Cork and has got his own kind of career doing his own sort of gigs and concerts,” Scully said. “Anthony’s the same in that he’s from Ireland, from Wexford, and has been brought up in Ireland. I’m kind of representing the Irish outside Ireland. I grew up my entire life overseas, Africa, Indonesia, Texas, California, Italy, France, Wales, now in New York. I’ve been around, and it’s amazing — wherever we go, there’s always Irish. Always.

” Scully sings every day.

“When I rest, I rust,” he said. “It’s like being a weight lifter, as soon as you stop lifting weights for one day, the next day you feel it. Same with singing.”

Choices for exercise are not always classical pieces. People of Irish descent will sing pub and folk songs every March. Irish tenors will, too.

“You go into a pub on St. Patrick’s Day after a gig, it happened last time we were here in the U.S. for St. Patrick’s Day,” Scully said. “We had just finished a concert, went out for a pint, and in the middle of having a few drinks, just started singing some of the pub songs, just casually. Probably ‘Whiskey in the Jar’ was one of them. Once a singer, always a singer.”

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