Join us from 5:00 to 8:00 PM at Union House Taproom & Livery every Third Saturday of the Month as we play Traditional Music from Britain and Ireland and the Celtic Diaspora. The Union House Taproom & Livery is at 12 E Main St., Richland, Pennsylvania
If you have never been to a Traditional Music Session you should know that they are something between a jam session and a performance. Players sit in a circle or an arc and the turn passes round the group. Tunes are often played in sets or groups of melodies which transition easily on the signal of the leading player. Players share tunes for dancing or listening and singers who want to lead may offer unaccompanied, accompanied or communal songs.
The Lebanon Traditional Music Sessions have been happening in this area since they first began 2007, in Suzanne Cahill’s Irish Restaurant on 9th Street on the site of the current Snitz Creek Brewery. When Suzanne closed the shop, Legends Café hosted the session for a few months until she opened Patsy Fagan’s Irish Bar at the corner of Tenth and Cumberland. When Patsy’s closed, the event moved to Niko’s over the Farmers Market. Following the demise of Niko’s the Session took up residence in Snitz Creek Brewery for a few months. As the Brewery became too crowded they moved to the Quentin Riding Club for a while but that proved too private and in the summer of 2015 they came back to the space above the Farmers market then known as The Foundry. The players enjoyed six months or so playing there but since September 2016 the session has been at the Union House Taproom and Livery in Richland.
The first session on September 17th celebrated the Borough’s centennial with a number of visitors dressed in Early 20th century costume. Free drinks were offered to any members of the borough who have Irish ancestry, since Richland was a stop along one of America’s earliest railroad system, The Reading Railroad, and the cutting in Richland was created in the 1830s by Irish laborers.