Eisteddfod – the cup runneth over

The 2003 Eisteddfod Festival of Traditional Music was an awesome, inspiring event with just one problem: there were so many terrific things going on at once that you had to make no end of painful choices. What to do: hear Oscar Brand hold forth on "Woody, Leadbelly, Dylan, & Me" or listen to John Roberts and Tony Barrand in a harmony workshop with the Kossoy Sisters and Orrin Star's Sultans of String? Of course, if you did either one of these, you'd miss some amazing Hungarian music (trumpet fiddle, anyone?) from the Eletfa Ensemble.

It was like that for the whole Aug. 8-10 weekend at Metrotech Center's Polytechnic University in Brooklyn. One person was heard to remark, "When are we supposed to go eat? There's no time for lunch – I'll miss something good."

You really had to hone your multitasking skills. I skipped out in the middle of a fine workshop on song parodies by Mike Agranoff and Joe Hickerson because I didn't want to miss the English Music Hall featuring Roberts and Barrand, David Jones, Maggi Peirce and Heather Wood, deftly accompanied by Jerry Epstein on piano.

Thankfully, the concerts provided some relief from the usual dilemma. How nice to enjoy the pure voice of Jean Ritchie without that nagging feeling that you might be missing Margaret Bennett's ballads from her native Hebrides, or Margaret MacArthur's songs of Vermont, or Jeff Warner's memorable ditties that he's picked up all over the place in a lifetime of song collecting.

Unfortunately, the Copper Family were unable to appear as scheduled, owing to patriarch Bob Copper's ill health. The time scheduled for their workshop on Saturday was given over to all and sundry singing the songs of this remarkable family from the English village of Rottingdean, in Sussex, many of which have become indelible parts of the traditional British canon.

Hats off to all those involved in producing this amazing weekend of traditional music, and let's hope it happens again next year, with a fully recovered 88-year-old Bob Copper.

--Mike Miller