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Concert Reviews:
-Mithril and Mobile Symphony - March 14, 2009
-Mithril's performance at Laidlaw 'sublime'
-Symphony presents tuneful evening with Celtic group Mithril

CD Reviews:
-The Return Home
-Winter's Day 1
-Winter's Day 2

March 14, 2009
Review of Mithril concert with Mobile Symphony
By THOMAS B. HARRISON
Arts Editor

Saturday was a night for Lords and leprechauns, pipes and percussionists — and a "little lady" in a red dress.

Celtic energy was unleashed with a joyous fury at the Saenger Theatre, where 1,792 tickets were sold for the "Mithril and the Lord of the Rings" concert. Despite weather befitting the wind-swept coast of the Emerald Isle, almost that many showed up. Another 1,300 tickets have been sold for today’s matinee.

Although not as raucous or electric as the band’s Christmas 2004 appearance with the Mobile Symphony Orchestra, this was a seamless and immensely satisfying night of music and revealed Mithril as a mature, versatile ensemble worthy of any concert stage.

And Lord o’ the Rings, do they enjoy themselves. The group’s exuberance was contagious and spread to the MSO musicians — most of them wearing some form of th’ green — and their smiling music director, Scott Speck, elegant in a green tie and cummerbund.

Most of the music was supplied by violinist Tom Morley, flutist Andra Bohnet, guitarist Ben Harper and percussionist David Hughes, and each enjoyed a moment or two in the spotlight.

Far and away the most charming interlude of the evening was the band’s performance of Hughes’ "The Little Lady," which he wrote for his 3-year-old daughter. As the other musicians played, Hughes brought the little girl on stage, stunning in her crimson dress, and they danced to the delight of the audience.

The program was punctuated by selections from the new Mithril CD, "Tangled Up," including the elegiac "Ashokan Farewell," a Mobile favorite; along with a medley from the "Fellowship of the Ring" movie (the first in the Peter Jackson trilogy), featuring music by the great Howard Shore.

Other highlights included Bohnet’s flute virtuosity on tunes such as the stirring "Captain O’Kane," Hughes’ rousing freehand percussion solo on "Celtic Silk Road," and Morley’s high-energy fiddling from start to finish.

No Mithrilite works harder than Ben Harper, who seemed to be all over the stage, rock-star hair flying, his nimble fingers supplying subtle melodies or more emphatic licks when the tempo shifted to high gear — which was often.

The evening began with Anderson’s "Irish Suite: The Girl I Left Behind Me," and (in the second half) "The Irish Washerwoman." If ye ever saw "The Quiet Man" with John Wayne, you’ll have no trouble recalling these tunes.

Another grand moment occurred early in the second half of the concert when Speck introduced the Duncan McCall Pipe Band from Pensacola. Clad in plaid for the occasion, the kilted lads were a marvelous sight as they marched down the aisle toward the stage, pipes wailing and audience members straining to see.

Once on stage, they performed a magnificent version of Amy Grant’s "Highland Cathedral," which was dedicated to one of their own, recently deployed to Afghanistan, and to a newly married couple set to fly off to Ireland for their honeymoon.

By the time the pipers marched off, they had won the hearts and minds of the Saenger crowd, many of whom would have fallen in line behind the drummers and headed off into the March rain. No standing ovation was more richly deserved.

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