I am looking at this page for a CBC St Patrick’s concert scheduled for tomorrow evening and am puzzled. St. Patrick’s day isn’t till late next week and the performers include a jazz singer, an Australian tenor and a kora master from Senegal.
Maybe I’m being touchy here, but rounding up these disparate acts and calling it an Everyone’s Irish concert is, well, kind of stupid. How would it go down if we called a collection of random musical acts an Everyone’s Greek concert or an Everyone’s Chinese concert? Why is being Irish sort of a malleable joke?
Matt 21:25 on 2011/03/07 Permalink
We insist on calling the Jazz Festival a “Jazz Festival” also and everyone knows that it’s not. They could at least change the name but at this point they’ve branded it as a jazz festival so thoroughly that there’s no going back. I’m afraid St. Patrick’s Day as excuse to get hammered is the norm and it’s been divorced from its cultural roots. Not that other things aren’t good, I love rock music and whiskey, but why bother calling anything anything anymore?
Ian 22:55 on 2011/03/07 Permalink
I guess we don’t need to celebrate francophone culture during Fête Nationale anymore, then?
Glenn 23:20 on 2011/03/07 Permalink
Because you can make more money when “everyone is Irish”. That’s really all there is to it. The only thing I enjoy about the day is the parade. Everything else has become a money grab.
Ian 23:43 on 2011/03/07 Permalink
While that’s definitely true of the downtown booze merchants, I fail to see where CBC is going to rake in the profits over this. It seems odd that they’re scheduling a Saint Patrick’s Day concert on International Women’s Day, you’d figure if they really wanted to appeal to a broad market segment (no pun intended) you’d think women would be a better choice than the “everyone’s Irish on Saint Paddy’s” approach.
Tim 07:18 on 2011/03/08 Permalink
Ian’s on to something… They should rename the concert “Everyone’s a Woman” and see how that flies…
William 11:53 on 2011/03/08 Permalink
Ummm, isn’t Ireland a multicultural country like most Western societies? Turn the question on its head – what if we had a Canada Day where we only sang praise to the Queen and waived orange, white and green Patriotes flags?
Kate 11:58 on 2011/03/08 Permalink
Ireland became rather suddenly multicultural during the Celtic Tiger years, when it attracted people to participate in its booming economy. Now that it’s crashed it’s less likely to do so. But nonetheless, unless questions of culture are deemed to be completely obliterated by globalization, there are certain styles of music (for example) that can be identified as Irish, and many styles which, like kora music, can’t.
Glenn 12:06 on 2011/03/08 Permalink
CBC can make more money with their current approach because not everyone wants to watch another tv special that’s just Irish dancers with silly backdrops and stage effects. CBC wants to appeal to the a bigger audience but I don’t think they care about reflecting Irish culture as it exists today or in the past.
Ian 14:39 on 2011/03/08 Permalink
Which begs the question – if it’s not on Saint Patrick’s Day and isn’t about “traditional” Irish culture, and (hypothetically) nobody cares about the boring old Irish, why even bring Saint Patrick’s Day into the mix? Call it a Pancake Tuesday concert and bob’s your uncle. Or maybe the “everyone’s a Pancake” concert.
Ian 20:52 on 2011/03/08 Permalink
…and, having listened to the show, it was actually mostly Irish music after all. Looks like that was just bad copywriting on the part of the web team.
Kate 08:58 on 2011/03/09 Permalink
Thanks for the report, Ian! : )
Kate 17:46 on 2011/03/09 Permalink
Wait. The concert is not on till this evening (Wednesday). How did you listen to a recording of a show that hadn’t happened yet?
Ian 09:54 on 2011/03/10 Permalink
No idea. I was listening tot he radio, they were playing a whole pile of Irish music in concert format, they had ol’ whassisface from Senegal paying along with Irish music on a Senegalese instrument, I jumped to conclusions. Unless there’s a whole new trend of Senegalese Irish music I didn’t know about, presented in concert format.