ConnectStoughton.com
December 5, 2019
Stoughton Courier Hub
7
Cherish the Ladies bring holiday show to Opera House BILL LIVICK
If You Go
Hub correspondent
Who: Cherish the Ladies holiday concert When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 7 Where: Stoughton Opera House, 381 E. Main St. Tickets: $40 reserved Call: 877-4400 Website: stoughtonoperahouse.ticketforce.com
fiddler Kathy McGinty. “It was a great day for me because it was actually 25 years to the day that my dad had won the All-Ireland on accordion,” Madden recalled. She accepted Moloney’s invitation to be part of the concert series, which included about two-dozen women performers. After the sold-out shows had ended, the participants had assumed that Cherish the Ladies was over. But Moloney persuaded the National Endowment of the Arts to fund an album. Like the concerts, it included over a dozen women and was a big success. Library of Congress selected it as one of the best folk albums of 1985, and the NEA sponsored a Cherish the Ladies tour. O rga n i z e r s t u r n e d t o Madden to pare the group down to a manageable size, which she did with a group of five women. “We met on a Wednesday and went out on tour on Thursday,” Madden remembered.
MACKENZIE KRUMME Unified Newspaper Group
Host a Family is seeking donations and volunteers for the holiday season. Each year, more than 1,000 presents are distributed to families in Stoughton, Oregon and McFarland through the sponsorship program. “The need in the community has never been greater, so I’m hoping those who can will give,” Host A Family board member Sue Schadewald wrote in a news release. “Many recipients have told us how grateful they are, because these are the only gifts their children get for the holidays,” she said. For 27 years, HAF has matched families in need with sponsors who want to give through its website, hostafamily.org.
When sponsors fill out the online form, they will receive a profile of a family with age-appropriate gift suggestions for their children, in addition to a requested gift card or item for the family. Gift prices range from $40-$50 and hosts can designate online how many children they would like to sponsor. “Some of the most requested items from families applying to be sponsored include gift cards for food or gas, as well as warm clothing or educational toys for the little ones,” Schadewald said. Dane County Health and Human Services, churches and schools refer many of the families in need to HAF, she said. “The commonality among them is that all are challenged in finding the basics like food and shelt e r,” S c h a d ewa l d s a i d . “Some are homeless. Many are experiencing short-term financial crises.”
On the Web To sponsor a family for the holiday season, visit:
hostafamily.org To help with distribution, visit hostafamily.org to register for a time to volunteer at Lakeview Church, 2200 Lincoln Ave. Volunteers help with checking in packages, sorting gifts and assisting clients with packages. To contribute, visit smile. amazon.com and designate “Host-A-Family” as a charity of choice. A percentage of the buyer’s eligible purchases will be donated to HAF. Ta x - d e d u c t i b l e d o n ations also can be sent to the Host-a-Family Program, P.O. Box 295, Stoughton, Wi 53589. Tax receipts are available upon request. For information, visit hostafamily.org. Contact Mackenzie Krumme at mackenzie. krumme@wcinet.com.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would be making my life working this way,” she added. “Since the beginning, we always had dancers with us and saw them as an exciting part of our show.” It was before Riverdance and Lord of the Dance had become enormously popular in the U.S. around 1990. By then, Cherish the Ladies had developed a strong following throughout the country. “ We w e r e d o i n g t h i s before Celtic was cool,” Madden said. “Our early tours often were a bit like going around and educating people about our music.” Cherish the Ladies will celebrate 35 years as a group in January. They’ve released 18 albums and have been named the favorite Irish-American band several times on both sides of the Atlantic. Madden explained that each woman in the band initially learned to play music at home from their father. She said for many years,
traditional Irish music was a male-dominated activity, and women played only a supportive role. But that gender disparity shifted in the past generation,
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Coogan (guitar, mandolin and vocals), Mirella Murray (accordion), Kathleen Boyle (piano and harmony vocals) and Nollaig Casey (fiddle) — the concert will feature two vocalists, Don Stiffe and Kate Purcell, world-champion step dancer David Geaney and All-Ireland champion singer and dancer Seamus O’Flatharta. “We’re going to come out with our guns a blazing,” Madden promised. Cherish the Ladies formed in 1985 as a way to celebrate the extraordinary number of American women playing traditional Irish music. Folklorist and musician Mick Moloney in 1983 conceived a plan to organize a concert series featuring Irish-American women performing their music, and Madden was the first person he contacted. That year she had taken first place for her age group in an All-Ireland music competition for performance on both flute and tin whistle. She also won a duet championship with
‘Host a family’ for the holiday Local organization seeking volunteers
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Cherish the Ladies: A Celtic Christmas plan to perform at the Stoughton Opera House Saturday, Dec. 7.
she added, and for some reason the girls followed their fathers’ example. “It was really our generation when women were actually encouraged to learn to play music,” Madden said. “I have five brothers, but I’m the only one that played traditional music. And that’s the way it was with all of us in the band — none of the sons picked up traditional Irish music but all of the girls did. Now we’re just carrying on the legacy of our fathers and bringing the music that’s been passed down.
Holiday deadlines Wednesday, December 25, 2019 Great Dane Shopping News Display Advertising: Wednesday, December 18 at 3pm Classified Advertising: Thursday, December 19 at Noon
Thursday, December 26, 2019 Community Papers Display & Classified Advertising: Thursday, December 19 at Noon
Wednesday, January 1, 2020 Great Dane Shopping News Display Advertising: Monday, December 23 at 3pm Classified Advertising: Thursday, December 26 at Noon
Thursday, January 2, 2020 Community Papers Display & Classified Advertising: Thursday, December 26 at Noon
Our offices will be closed December 25, 2019 and January 1, 2020
845-9559, 835-6677 or 873-6671
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Joanie Madden, leader of the all-women Irish group Cherish the Ladies, isn’t sure why Celtic music is so readily linked to the Christmas holiday. But like any good performer, she’s happy to give people what they want. About 20 years ago, a concert promoter contacted Madden and asked if her band had a Christmas show. Madden said yes of course it did, and after she agreed to perform three concerts leading up to the holiday, she quickly set about putting together a holiday show. Two decades later, Cherish the Ladies have released three Christmas albums and performed hundreds of concerts that mix traditional Irish music with classic holiday songs. “The first album, ‘On C h r i s t m a s N i g h t ,’ w e recorded here in my house and we couldn’t believe it when the New York Times chose it as one of the top 10 Christmas albums,” Madden said during a phone interview from her home in New York City. The quintet recorded their first Christmas album in 2004 and followed with two more: “A Star in the East” in 2009 and “Christmas in Ireland” in 2015. “So many traditional Irish melodies interweave very well with Christmas music,” Madden observed. She and her band will return Saturday at 7:30 p.m. to put on another holiday show featuring traditional Celtic music and dance alongside their favorite Christmas songs. Cherish the Ladies have scheduled 20 holiday shows in 24 days in seven states, Madden said. Along with the group’s regular members — Madden (flute, whistles and harmony vocals), Mary