The musicians of Ambler Celtic Strings are assembled in the community room of the Wissahickon Valley Public Library branch in Ambler, hemmed in by lime green plastic stacking chairs, and they’re running through the set list for their first gig at Jenkintown’s MacSwiney Club.
As it happens with most practices, some of the tunes are a little rough around the edges, needing a few tweaks here and there, but fiddlers Bruce Fenderson and Aine O’Sullivan, guitarists Paul and Brenna Waters, bodhran player Tom Troxell, and whistler Andy Toland are generally encouraged by their progress.
They methodically play one tune after another — “Rocky Road to Dublin,” “Wild Rover,” “Whiskey in the Jar,” “Black Velvet Band,” “The South Wind,” “Leaving of Liverpool” – and other standards that most aficionados of Irish music would recognize and appreciate.
A pretty good start.
Fenderson, who plays violin in the Ambler Symphony Orchestra, knew that fellow members of the classical ensemble were playing outside gigs. He sat in on a group that was playing old-timey tunes, but that wasn’t quite his thing.
But then another member of the orchestra was looking into violin lessons, Fenderson says, “and I was doing that, and he showed me some Irish music. I just saw that the music had a melody that resonated, and so I fell in love with it and took it from there, and I’ve been doing it as much as possible since then.”
That infatuation began around 10 years ago. He and a few of his friends formed an Irish band called the Whiskey Biscuits, and they started to play around the Ambler area.
Fenderson still plays with that band, but Ambler Celtic Strings really began to take shape a year ago, at a flea market in Skippack.
Fenderson and his wife were attending the market, he recalls, “and Paul Waters was there selling handmade furniture and woodworking that he’d been doing with a buddy, and my wife may have bought something from him. In any event, they talked, and Paul’s daughter Brenna was there. Eventually, the talk turned to music, and Faith said to Paul, ‘Oh, you’ve got to talk to my husband.’ So, we did.”
One by one, the group came together. Paul and Brenna, who were already familiar with Irish music, came in on guitar (and Brenna is the group’s singer). Fenderson knew O’Sullivan, whose parents hail from Kerry, from the orchestra, and he recruited her. Troxell, already a seasoned drummer came on with his bodhran (a traditional Irish frame drum). And for Toland, a friend of Troxell’s, that night in the library community room was his first practice with the band.
The band is scheduled to play its next gig Tuesday night at 6:30 at the Ambler library branch, 209 Race Street. Once again, serendipity played a role.
“The Friends of the Ambler Library is a group of citizens who support the library, and they also fund and support special events,” says Fenderson. “Anyway, we were rehearsing there one night, and the branch manager suggested that we play an event there. It sold out. They immediately issued 75 tickets to the community room. It’s just amazing that people there have the desire to hear Celtic music, and we’re thrilled to be able to do that.”
