Clemmons Draws Curtains on Final Show

On March 17, Alexander Twilight Artist-in Residence Francois Clemmons will debut his 10th and final annual St. Patrick’s Day Concert, an exploration of traditional Irish music, brimming with skirling bagpipes, penny-tin whistles and tweeting flutes. Clemmons will retire after this semester at the College, but with his new outfit of Irish green and multi-colored jacket, he is sure to bow out with a bang.

“Every year I have a new outfit,” Clemmons said. “This year’s concert will not be that much different. I am not trying to be new, but encapsulate the stunning, inspiring legacy of the Irish spirit.”
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lemmons’s preservation of the Irish legacy came from his experience living in New York City, where he would sing in Gaelic at St. Brendan’s RC Church, imitating John McCormack, the most celebrated Irish tenor of his time.

“Ever since I was 18 years old, I fell in love with the Irish culture,” Clemmons said. “When I got to Middlebury, there was no outlet for traditional Irish culture, so I asked some friends to sing some songs with me, thinking ‘why don’t I invite someone to play Irish bagpipes or the Irish fiddle?’ I continually pulled people in.”

This year’s lineup of guest artists has expanded to include students like Ben Harris ’16 who will join alum Andy Collins ’12 and affiliate artist Tim Cummings in playing the highland bagpipes, Director of Jazz Activities Dick Forman on piano, local harpist Margie Bekoff and many more. Music makers and lovers come from near and far to celebrate the Irish spirit, for Clemmons says he even had to turn down requests to organize a similar St. Patrick’s Day concert in Rutland.

Some music lovers may have to travel long distances for the concert, but Cummings said the music line-up will span the world as well, performing songs from not only Ireland, but also Scotland and Brittany in France.

“Celtic music has a much broader umbrella than what you find in Ireland,” Cummings said. “They’re designed for dancing, not virtuosic. The idea of folk music is building the largest library out of small, short tunes so that you can play more music with more people as a social function.” With the evolving, widening range of Celtic songs and enlarging student interest, the concert has grown to be an inclusive celebration that centers on the audience.

“When we began, it was about finding an interesting repertoire,” Forman said. “Now, we tend to stick to traditional, well-know Irish songs. The challenge is in keeping all that fresh.”

The arch of Celtic songs relies on upbeat, jolly rhythms that amplify celebration and revelry, but underneath it all lays a deep-rooted seriousness. Irish songs, passed down orally by generations from periods of famine and British imperialism, are “products of the suffering people,” Clemmons said. “I read most of Irish history as mournful, full of war and suffering; and I see similiarities in the African-American struggle before, during and after the American Civil War. But between the Irish and Black American struggle, there’s a different hope, one of romantic love and a spirit full of love, fun, but also with seriousness.”

While the first annual concert stemmed from Clemmons’s affinity for the Irish legacy, this upcoming concert is Clemmons’s “statement to Boston and Chicago who refuse gays the right to march in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade,” he said. “I am openly gay. I am black. I am not Irish, but I love the culture and tradition. We need to understand how diverse the Irish community is — that it includes gays and blacks. The Irish experience is not a one-dimensional experience.”

“One or two performers have Irish blood — the rest of us don’t,” Cummings said. “This is an occasion where everyone can be Irish for a day.”

The concert undeniably infuses a touch of social statement into the usual festivities of St. Patrick’s Day. It is a day, Clemmons says, about love and celebration. “Students don’t generally hear this music throughout the year,” he said. “I want to share my love and appreciation for the Irish culture as one with a stunning legacy and about more than just a drink in an Irish bar.”

Clemmons has printed out lyrics for the traditional sing-along, promising songs like “Danny Boy” and “When you and I were young, Maggie.”

After this semester, Clemmons will part as emeritus artist-in-residence, but said he “will be a part of the Middlebury family indefinitely.” He plans to travel, see the Great Wall of China before he dies and finish his autobiography, A Song for my Soul.

“I am so used to performing in public, being an extrovert,” he said. “This time in my life for reflection, to think, to write — I will force myself to be quiet.”

Come decked out in green to the Kevin P. Mahaney ’84 Center for the Arts Concert Hall on March 17 at 4 p.m. The event is free to all.