Enjoy a Celebration of Ireland, March 14

The Rock Island Public Library's monthly Tuneful Tuesday concert will be one week later than usual in March, but the wait will be worth it. The first large concert at the library's new Watts-Midtown Branch features a "Celebration of Ireland" with globe-trotting musical duo Four Shillings Short.

The free family concert by Four Shillings Short takes place from Noon to 1:00 pm on Tuesday, March 14, in the Community Room of the Rock Island Public Library's new Watts-Midtown Branch, 2715 30^th Street. It's open to guests of all ages. Entitled A CELEBRATION OF IRELAND, the concert takes the audience on a journey to the Emerald Isle with traditional toe-tapping tunes, songs in Gaelic and English, folklore, history and Irish poetry.

Four Shillings Short, the husband/wife duo of Aodh Og O'Tuama from Cork, Ireland and Christy Martin from California, have been touring in the United States & Ireland since 1997. The international multi-instrumentalists perform traditional and original music from the Celtic lands on more than 30 instruments, hammered and mountain dulcimer, mandolin, mandola, bouzouki, tin whistles, recorders, medieval and renaissance woodwinds, north-Indian sitar, charango, bowed psaltery, banjo, bodhran, guitar, percussion, vocals, and even a krumhorn.

Four Shillings Short are independent folk-artists who perform 100 concerts a year. The duo has released 13 recordings and live as fulltime musicians traveling from town to town performing at music festivals, theaters, performing arts centers, folk societies, libraries, house concerts and schools. Aodh Og [pronounced Aawn] O'Tuama grew up in a family of poets, musicians and writers. He received his degree in music from University College Cork, Ireland and received a Fellowship from Stanford University in California in Medieval and Renaissance performance. He plays tin whistles, medieval and renaissance woodwinds, recorders, doumbek (from Morocco), bowed psaltery, and spoons, and sings in English, Gaelic and French.

Christy Martin grew up in a family of musicians and dancers. From the age of 15, she studied North Indian sitar for 10 years, five of them with a student of master sitarist Ravi Shankar. She began playing the hammered dulcimer in her 20's and has studied with Maggie Sansone, Dan Duggan, Cliff Moses, Robin Petrie, Tony Elman and Glen Morgan. She also plays mandolin, mandola, bouzouki, banjo, guitar, bodhran (an Irish frame drum), charango, and bowed psaltery, and sings in English, Irish, and Sanskrit.

The library's April Tuneful Tuesday concert will return on the usual first Tuesday date of April 4, at its regular location, the Downtown Library. The spring concert series is made possible by generous support of long-time library patrons James and Carol Horstmann.

The event is free and open to all.

For more events and services at the Rock Island Public Library's three physical locations, visit the library website, call 309-732-READ, or follow the Rock Island Library social media channels.