In the past week-plus, the Lensic Performing Arts Center hosted two evenings that might conveniently fall under the rubric of world music: On March 23, Kodo, a drumming ensemble from Japan; and on March 26, Dervish, an Irish folk-music ensemble. They were wonderful, soul-filling evenings. In both cases, the performers hewed closely to “pure” traditions. As a result, both had a flavor of transporting listeners to a distant place rather than of super-imposing a foreign culture onto what would have been here already.

Kodo attracted a sold-out crowd, but Dervish did not, to my surprise. It was an engaged gathering all the same, and many in the audience clapped along or even added their voices now and again, as they were encouraged to do by Cathy Jordan, the group’s charismatic singer and master of ceremonies. She doubled as percussionist (playing bodhrán and clappers) and was backed by five gentlemen playing in a fine blend of fiddle, flutes (including pennywhistle), mandola (tenor mandolin), bouzouki, and button accordion. The group was amplified more heavily than seemed necessary. The resultant increase in volume did not reach objectionable levels, but tonal delicacy eroded as part of the process and the balance was thrown awry, with the instruments sometimes overwhelming the singer. If Kodo’s music had been mostly about rhythm, that of Dervish was mostly melody, often intoned in unison (but with touches of individual ornamentation) by several performers, the tunes supported by simple harmonies and given out in repeated rhythms. But such melodies! The group’s repertoire is mostly drawn from folk music of the west coast of Ireland, and it wasn’t heavy on standard numbers, which kept listeners from lulling off into over-familiarity. Dervish collected some of the pieces directly from folk singers they encountered in the course of their travels and residencies. Jordan referred to one, “Eileen Óg (The Pride of Petravore),” as a music-hall song; indeed it would seem to be that, dating from about a hundred years ago, but the tune to which it was set, at least in this performance, followed the general contours of the other songs.
This being Irish traditional music, the instrumental dances were toe-tapping. In contrast, the songs and ballads tended to exude mournfulness in their subject matter, although their tunes were often more chipper than the words. Our constant companions through the evening were soldiers separated from their wives, wives murdered by their husbands, children foisted off on the neighbors due to economic necessity — that sort of thing. Jordan related all the grim plots and tempered them with a wry commentary that revealed her to be a consummate master of the vaunted Irish craic, agreeable banter that made one think she’d be the kind of person with whom you’d enjoy being trapped in a stalled elevator.