The energy is ramping up for St. Patrick’s Day in Granville, and in true Irish and Scottish fashion, the Granville Center for Arts is hosting a ceili (pronounced kay-lee) to celebrate community, music and tradition.
The second annual Irish ceili is a celebration of culture, and traditional Irish barn dances. Accompanied by Granville’s very own Irish music band, the Celts Crossing Band, and the Irish Music Club, the celebration is certain to be energetic. The Irish Music Club is led by Leah Bernini Cronin, who has devoted her life to Irish music.
A Granville native, Bernini Cronin grew up across the street from Denison University with her two half-Irish parents. Her father, Frank O’Brien Bernini, played the drums and shared their family heritage with Bernini Cronin through the art of music.
And once she heard the lively wail of a fiddle at age 6 at a fiddle competition in the Roscoe Village, she knew she needed to play it, too.
“I was like, that is what I need to do,” Bernini Cronin recalled. “My parents finally said ‘she’s not giving this up, she’s not letting it go, and we probably need to find her a teacher.’ So they did, and I joined the Denison Suzuki program when I was 7.”
As a method of instruction developed in the mid 20th-century by Shinichi Suzuki, the curriculum teaches that a child can learn an instrument much like a language. Similar to how children will first learn to speak before reading, the Suzuki method surrounds young students with instrumentals before sheet music.
“That’s relevant, because in Irish music, where I came to that a little bit later when I was about 13, Irish music isn’t taught using sheet music,” Bernini Cronin said.
In 2002, Bernini Cronin started a band with her father after a lifetime of practicing her fiddle. The Celts Crossing Band – featuring Bernini Cronin on fiddle, her father on drums, vocals and world percussion, Danyelle Phelps on fiddle, Scott Rawdon on bass, Liz Redrow on guitar, keyboard and vocals, and Paul Mumma on guitar, whistles and bagpipes – is slated to perform at this year’s Irish Ceili at the Granville Center for the Arts.
The ceili, a festive gathering rooted in Irish and Scottish tradition, brings musicians, dancers and storytellers together for an evening of celebration. This year, the ceili will feature Celts Crossing, as well as Kayce Long, an Irish dance instructor, and a potluck on Sunday, March 16 from 2-4 p.m.
Long will be the ceili’s caller, and guide participants through the steps of traditional Irish barn dancing. So while Bernini Cronin and her colleagues provide the beat, Long will lead each moment, allowing people of all ages to feel the rhythm and step in time. Starting slow, the group eventually gains confidence with their steps and the band picks up speed and energy fills the hall. With no time at all, the room’s air is certain to swirl with laughter and the sound of shoe heels stomping the floor.
This is a special moment for Bernini Cronin: It represents everything she’s studied and practiced in life. Not only does the annual Ceili transform the hours of practice she’s spent fiddling away, but the cross between her heritage and her home.
Bernini Cronin has dedicated her life to the study of Irish music, interning at one of the only Irish record labels in the United States at the time. And in 2009, she moved to Ireland, where she completed her masters’ in Irish traditional music performance at the University of Limerick. She also picked up an interest in ethnomusicology — an applied study of anthropology that looks at music’s cultural contexts — and studied it while working on her PhD.
Bernini Cronin eventually moved back to Granville to start her own family. Life turned into survival mode for a bit, while she adjusted to her first born, a global pandemic, and then another baby. Then about two years ago, energy started to build back up.
With much practice under her belt in the Village, Bernini Cronin reached out to Granville Center for the Arts, looking for a way to be involved.
“I really believe in community art,” Bernini Cronin said. “I really believe in giving back to the community that gave me such a good footing and then also welcomed me home so well.”
Ryan McGuire, co-founder of the Granville Center for the Arts, suggested Bernini Cronin start a monthly club, and just like that, the Irish Music Club was born.
Read more: Bright Spot: Irish Music Club
When Ryan McGuire started the Granville Center for the Arts, events like the Irish Music Club and the Irish Ceili were exactly what he wanted for his community.
“We’re just a community of love,” McGuire said. “We’ve become sort of a ‘yes, and’ organization,” in part because the center was looking for ways to cultivate creativity in the village.
The Irish Music Club meets every month, and is open to anyone with an instrument and curiosity for learning the genre. The meeting structures itself much like a typical Irish Music class found in Ireland with one teacher sitting in a round with each student facing each other. Each measure translates to a phrase, which everyone plays together while Bernini Cronin listens. When she thinks the entire group sounds good, and finger work is in time, they move on to the next section – no sheet music needed.
When reminiscing on the past ceilis, Bernini Cronin teared up, recalling a moment at last year’s ceili when an older couple danced together in their own little world while a mother swayed with her newborn, and a group of teenagers across the circle guided their younger siblings through the steps.
“In what other place do you have that opportunity? These people didn’t know each other, and here they were dancing together,” Bernini Cronin said. “I can’t think of anything else that does that.”
The second annual Irish Ceili will take place at the Granville Center for the Arts on Sunday, March 16 at 2:00 p.m.. Everyone of all ages are welcome to the free celebration and potluck. Guests are encouraged to chip in with any food they have to share and bring energy for the foot-stomping Irish and Scottish celebration.
This story was updated at 7:45 p.m. Friday, March 13, to include the current list of members of Celts Crossing and additional information about Bernini Cronin’s education. The Reporting Project regrets the error.
Anastasia Wood writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.
Selah Griffin contributed to this story.