Got it covered — Musicians chip in to help Veronica’s pay to play

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

When Diane Hooper and Kathy Miller bought Veronica’s in Kenai in November, they vowed to revive the quirky coffee shop’s tradition of live music performances in part as a service to customers, and as a way to support and promote local musicians.

Little did they know they’d be contributing to the likes of Paul McCartney, as well.

A new song

Music and Veronica’s go together like the sweet, golden cornbread that ubiquitously accompanies soup and sandwich orders. No matter the shape, size, consistency or flavor, the place wouldn’t be the same without it.

The coffee shop itself is musical, with the squeaks, creaks, sighs and whispers of a 90-year-old, added-on-to wooden building weathering the perpetual wind atop the Kenai River mouth bluff in Old Town Kenai. Add to that the percussion of a bustling kitchen, squealing espresso machine and furniture wobbling for balance against the worn-in floor and it’s a symphony in need of a melody.

That’s one of the reasons Hooper and Miller were drawn to buy it.

“It’s a magical place at night with the snow falling and the lights on and the music. And now I can be part of it every day,” Hooper said.

Previous owners Rebecca Lambourn and Stan Coleman had cut back on live music because of declining revenue. Music nights weren’t big moneymakers but Lambourn hired musicians anyway, if for no other reason than her own enjoyment and dedication to the local arts community. But as fewer and fewer customers came out to listen last fall, she was less and less inclined to continue the practice.

When Hooper and Miller took over, they kept open mic nights going, on Fridays, and reinstituted live music Saturdays. But with all the costs involved in taking over a business, Hooper said she and Miller didn’t have money to spare. They needed the music nights to pay for themselves in order to continue.

That prospect became more daunting with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers on the scene, sending letters and making phone calls insisting Veronica’s pay for a blanket performance license if they were to host live music nights, or even play CDs over the speakers.

To the tune of $300

ASCAP is a membership association of more than 320,000 U.S. composers, songwriters, lyricists and music publishers of all genres that collects and distributes royalties from the use of members’ copyrighted songs.

Think of it as the intellectual property police for music. Every time a copyrighted song is played for public consumption, whether it’s live, used in a commercial, or piped over the speakers at a hockey game, airplane or restaurant, whoever composed the song and wrote the lyrics is supposed to be compensated for it.

That’s where ASCAP and similar organizations, including Broadcast Music Inc., come in. In the case of radio or TV, where music is extensively tracked and logged, ASCAP collects a fee each time a song is played. Establishments like restaurants or bars that play recorded music or host live performances where copyrighted songs are played can pay for a blanket license every year that covers any of their songs that are covered.

“You have basically five exclusive rights that are yours, that’s how you raise money from intellectual property. One of those rights is the right for public performance. If someone wants to perform your song in public, they need your permission. They need to pay you something,” said Vincent Candilora, senior vice president of licensing with ASCAP, based in Nashville.

Candilora points out that ASCAP isn’t part of the big recording labels, and the money the organization collects doesn’t go to Britney Spears. It’s for the people who write the music, who aren’t always the ones making it big performing the songs, or the record companies that rake in cash from selling them.

“Most people think that if you write a hit song you’re on easy street, but that is not the case. You need to separate out the difference between recording artists and songwriters,” he said.

Take the hit country song, “The Gambler,” for instance. Who comes to mind?

“Kenny Rogers. But Kenny Rogers didn’t write that song. It was written by a guy named Don Schlitz,” Candilora said. “When Kenny Rogers’ bank account goes down, he can go on tour and sell tickets to concerts and T-shirts. A couple years ago he was selling roasted chicken. Don Schlitz can’t do that. I haven’t met anybody who wants to buy a Don Schlitz T-shirt. That’s the difference between a songwriter and an artist.”

An ASCAP license is a routine business expense, Candilora said, like a restaurant buying parsley that’s only used to spruce up a plate.

“You have to get permission to use someone else’s property. It’s not theirs, so there’s that fairness aspect to it,” he said. “The other aspect I like to think of is how do you put a value on music? … I think it makes a major contribution to our culture, and people who have been gifted with the ability to write this music should be able make a living from it. That shouldn’t be overlooked, either. It isn’t just parsley.”

ASCAP does put a value on music. A blanket license is a calculated based on how music’s used and how many people an establishment holds. If a restaurant just plays CDs, a license would cost 3.11 times the number of people allowed in a building based on its posted fire code occupancy, Candilora said. If it hosts live music three or less days a week, it’s 4.46 times occupancy. If it hosts music four to seven days a week, it’s 5.34 times occupancy. If there’s a cover charge, the rate goes up again.

Veronica’s was facing a bill of a little over $300, and ASCAP was not letting them forget it. Candilora said ASCAP has 40 teams of license managers around the country. Some drive around looking for places that use music. Once they find an establishment, get its occupancy and determine how they use music, they record the information and the establishment starts receiving letters explaining what ASCAP is, what copyright law dictates and what they owe for a license. If they don’t pay, ASCAP follows up with phone calls.

If they still don’t pay, ASCAP might send a regional license manager in to speak to the business owner, and from there might pursue a legal remedy.

“As a last resort what we have to do, ultimately, is we will file suit for copyright infringement if it continues. It’s not something we like to do and, as I said, it’s a last resort, but we are always in the process of filing suits. There’s always a small percentage who think that, ‘We’re just a small place and you have bigger fish to fry. You won’t sue us.’ Once you’re on our radar screen, it really won’t go away,” Candilora said.

The nearest ASCAP regional team is based Seattle, Candilora said, but license managers do make trips up to Alaska, which is probably how Veronica’s ended up on the radar screen.

“Whoever draws the longest straw, or shortest straw, gets to do a little stint in Alaska. I’ll be honest with you, they’re not there 52 weeks of the year. Maybe three months of the year. ... Some places may not see a license rep but maybe once a year or once every two years,” he said.

The beat goes on

Veronica’s was faced with the same set of choices as every business that ends up on the ASCAP mailing list — pay up; ignore the letters and calls and hope they don’t get sued; switch to a format of all-original music, which precludes a lot of background music and makes live sets extremely difficult; or stop the music altogether.

For Veronica’s, it came down to paying or not playing. Not playing wasn’t the preferred option.

“No one else is really doing music in this town. It’s the only place that does music anymore that isn’t smoky and an alcoholy bar. I couldn’t let it die,” said Katie Evans, a musician who works at Veronica’s.

With the blessing of Hooper and Miller, Evans organized a fundraiser March 20 to pay for the license. She invited local musicians to play three-song sets, and local artists and community members to donate items for a Chinese auction. There wasn’t a cover charge, but a jug was set out for donations, and all the tips from the night went into the donations pile, as well.

Evans said she wasn’t sure how the event would go, since she’d heard grumbling over having to pay for the license in the first place.

Scot Q. Merry, a local musician and music producer who moved up from Nashville, said he understands why people may be resistant to paying for a license, but it’s beneficial in the long run.

“I don’t like to see them struggle to pay more bills than they should, but by the same token, intellectual property is something that is just getting so abused, and it trickles down to us,” Merry said, listing illegal music downloads as an example. “… I certainly understand those people who think it’s too small, it’s too something. It shouldn’t be required. It’s that same attitude, ‘Oh, music should be free.’ While I appreciate that hippy approach, the quality improves when a community supports the artists. It’s always good for the community, good for the people, good for the artists — it’s an important part of our culture. It’s the United States. Everything costs.”

The hardest-to-swallow chunk of the ASCAP blanket license is the fact that the money goes to popular songwriters, not necessarily the ones whose songs are played, Merry said. Since individual songs aren’t tracked with a blanket license, ASCAP notes the genre of music played at an establishment, and divvies most the license fees up among the most popular songwriters in that genre, under the assumption that the popular music is played most often.

At Veronica’s, music tends toward folk or acoustic classic rock.

“I’ll guarantee the Beatles will get some of the money Veronica’s will pay,” Merry said. “They break it down among the most popular songwriters in whatever genra you’re talking about. We’re probably gonna help pay for the light bill on Paul McCartney’s castle this week.”

Still, Merry said it’s a worthy bill to pay.

“With Veronica’s being a place that supports songwriters, even though the songwriters they support may not see any of that money, it’s the right thing to do. For one, it shows they really are supporting the songwriters in some way,” he said.

And vice versa at Veronica’s. Singers, songwriters and musicians filled the coffee shop to standing room only March 20.

“Everything went phenomenally,” Hooper said. “We were able to raise money to pay for almost three years’ licenses. There was tremendous support and outpouring from the local community. It was packed. It was just wonderful.

“We definitely are going to keep Friday and Saturday nights going. It’s been absolutely great,” she said. “The music will continue.”

Celebration in song — Sitka Summer Music Festival has classic take on statehood

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

The highlight of Thursday’s concert by the Sitka Summer Music Festival musicians in Soldotna may well be a piece written by Paul Rosenthal, the festival’s founder and artistic director, but not as far as he is concerned.

Rosenthal, a violinist, wrote an arrangement of the Alaska flag song for the state’s 25th anniversary. He was asked to perform it again this year in honor of Alaska’s 50th anniversary, so he wrote a set of variations on the piece, “Bravura Variations on ‘Alaska’s Flag,’” to be played by violin and piano.

“It’s sort of funny, when I talked to Paul about playing this in the concert he kind of huffed and said, ‘Oh all right, and we’ll play some music by real composers, too.’ He’s very humble,” said Maria Allison, with the Performing Arts Society, which is sponsoring the concert.

The irony being that Alaskans would consider Rosenthal quite real, no matter what he was composing. He is well-known through his connection with the 36-year-old Sitka music festival, and as a performer throughout the state due to his interest in bringing classical music to even the most remote Bush communities.

He and his fellow Sitka festival performers have included a stop in Soldotna in their winter for more than 10 years now, Allison said.

His piece being a play on something familiar, along with Rosenthal’s talent for composition and performance, should make it even better received.

“It is very virtuoso. It makes you think of something played by Paganini. It’s just really flashy and spectacular and shows off all the violin technique,” Allison said.

The grandeur of the piece makes sense, considering Rosenthal’s thoughts on Alaska, his adopted home state since 1969. In the liner notes of the “Bravura” recording, he wrote, “For a concert violinist to live in Alaska seemed an odd notion back then, and yet the place had irresistible attractions for my restless spirit: Nature, of course, so grand and varied, and Adventure, which beckoned from the side of every road, the window of every plane, and the vast waters around every boat I would take to cover those huge distances.”

Along with Rosenthal, cellist Armen Ksajikian and pianist Arnulf von Arnim will perform. All three are familiar to central Kenai Peninsula audiences from their previous tours with the Sitka festival.

“They have a huge following, and all three of them have played here many times,” Allison said. “… When the three play together it’s always really exciting because all three are just so fabulous.”

The “real” composers featured in the concert will be Bedrich Smetana and Ludwig van Beethoven. “Piano Trio in G Minor, Op. 15,” by Smetana, called the “father of Bohemian music,” is a powerful work that progresses from somber to energetic themes.

In the Beethoven trio, “Piano Trio in E Flat Major, Op. 70, No. 2,” a slow, sedate introduction quickly gives way to a more lively, high-spirited aura.

One of the cornerstones of the Sitka music festival is spreading exposure to and appreciation of classical music. That’s why they tour in the first place, and especially why they like to include stops at schools.

“Usually if school is in session when they are here they have done school concerts. Kaleidoscope, Sterling Elementary, just different schools around the community,” Allison said. “Tustumena Elementary is the lucky one this year.”

The Performing Arts Society honors that spirit of outreach by maintaining a low student rate at the concert, $5 a ticket for anyone in school — whether it’s children or college students. Even general admission, at $15 a ticket, is low compared to concert prices when the group performs in Anchorage.

“It’s a good deal,” especially considering everything the group puts into their performances, Allison said.

“Paul and all the musicians who come with him are very anxious to communicate about music with people, not only in playing it but talking about it and making it really fun for the audience.

“They’re really great about talking about their music and education as well as entertaining.”

The performance is at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Christ Lutheran Church in Soldotna. A free reception will be held after the show. For more information about the musicians, visit www.sitkamusicfestival.org.

Getting jiggy with it — Seamus Kennedy returns for 2 shows

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

Faces will be smiling when their eyes land on the Irish next week in Soldotna.

Musician Seamus Kennedy returns for two shows, Feb. 3 and 4, at The Crossing in Soldotna. The performer has been popular in Soldotna and includes the venue in his Alaska travels to Anchorage and Fairbanks.

“He was accepted so much last time that he’d like to try two shows,” said Mike Sweeney, organizer of the event.

Kennedy has been performing in Soldotna for about 18 years, Sweeney said, mostly in the same venue.

“They came down here and played at the Catholic Church, the O’Neill Hall, back in ’94, and I saw him then. They just wanted a way to get a bigger location so I got them in at the Tides (now The Crossing). So it’s been the Tides and The Crossing at that same location, and he likes it,” he said.

The show’s content has changed over the years, with Kennedy adding new songs and stories from his travels around the world. But the venue in Soldotna and reception he gets when he’s here stays the same. His shows typically sell out, although he’s added cruise ship performances out of Florida to his itinerary, so he hasn’t made it to Alaska in a few years.

“He was doing that and he missed Alaska so he wanted to come back to Alaska. People really enjoy him,” Sweeney said.

The performances are a fundraiser for the Kenai Peninsula Literacy Program. Proceeds from ticket sales go directly to the program, which then provides grants to local elementary schools, like Kalifornsky Beach, Redoubt and Soldotna, to buy reading materials or otherwise support literacy.

It’s an appropriate cause for a performer who’s part musician, part storyteller. Much of his performance is comedy, with jokes, silly lyrics and tongue twisters where the audience is asked to sing along — or try to, anyway.

His musical repertoire is vast, ranging from lively jigs to somber ballads, reminiscent of his cultural heritage from Belfast, Northern Ireland. He’s got 12 albums, and sometimes mixes in songs from his major influences, the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, the Dubliners’ Luke Kelly, and the Irish Rovers.

Tickets are $20, available in advance from Sweeney’s. For more information about the show, call 262-2906. For more information about Kennedy, visit the Web site, http://mcnote.com/seamus.

Hopeful homecoming — This Hope returns to Soldotna for holiday music performances

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

No matter how many albums they release, how much international travel they do or how intertwined they become with their ministry in the Lower 48, the gospel singing group This Hope hasn’t forgotten its roots on the central Kenai Peninsula.

Daniel Johnston and Mikah Boudreaux met as kids through Soldotna Bible Chapel, where their families were members since the boys were in elementary school. They met Dave, Tim and Dan Inabnit when the Inabnits moved to Soldotna from Montana so their father could be pastor at the church. Jeane Bope grew up in the Soldotna-Kenai area, and met Johnston and Tim Inabnit when he started attending Soldotna High School and joined the school’s choir.

“We just started singing together in church there at the Bible Chapel. Different variations of the group of us would sing special music, like for Christmas,” Boudreaux said.

Eventually they all started singing together. Word of their talent spread and they began to book performances in other churches on the peninsula and around Southcentral Alaska. They spent summers performing, and became even more intertwined — Dave Inabnit married Johnston’s sister, and Johnston married Bope’s sister.

They began to consider singing professionally.

“It definitely wasn’t all of our ambition to go into this like as a career or as a full-time ministry,” Boudreaux said. “I think that the Lord just slowly brought us along. As the doors of opportunity opened and continued to open it kind of came to a point where the singing was becoming more and more of a time focus and it was too much to do all of that and continue to do regular jobs, and those kinds of things.

“We really prayed about it and sought the Lord’s will about what he wanted us to do. Over the course of those years the Lord impressed on all our hearts that he could use us with the singing, so we started to plan out into the future with that in mind.”

It took awhile to get there, but the good thing about humble beginnings is there’s nowhere to go but up. Their group’s first tour wheels was an old blue-and-white Suburban given to them by Pastor Ted Inabnit. It proved to be an adequate, if not faithful, steed, until the passenger side front wheel came off while rounding a curve on a trip to Anchorage, rolled in front of the Suburban and off a cliff. Luckily, they were able to hitch a ride with a passing acquaintance who had enough trunk room for their economical sound system — Tim Inabnit’s car speakers for mains and Dan Inabnit’s computer speakers for monitors.

Naming the group was another early challenge. Middle-of-the-night, stream-of-consciousness brainstorming sessions produced some not-so-catchy monikers, including Next Exit, For Reservation, With That In Mind and Five Guys in Bad Pants. This Hope came from a quote from Hebrews 6:19, “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.”

By 1996 This Hope members was ready to see if they could support themselves through their musical ministry. They decided to try it for a year, and traveled around Alaska and to the Lower 48.

“We were able to provide that first year. It was kind of funny because our expectations of the budget were like two or three times less than what we actually spent, but the income that came in also surprised us, so the Lord really provided for us,” Boudreaux said.

By 1997, Dan Inabnit decided that his path in life lie in another direction, but Boudreaux had graduated from high school at that point, so he joined the group in Dan’s place. Later that year they moved to the Lower 48, eventually settling in the Atlanta area. Alaska was too expensive and spread out to support their ministry, so they wanted to find an area with a large number of churches and where major cities were closer together.

Since starting their ministry over 10 years ago, this Hope has performed at the Southern Baptist Convention and has taken their ministry international, to Cuba twice and to Spain, Ukraine and Romania.

They’ve released 10 CDs, including two new ones that are available on iTunes. One is “Final Destination,” and the other is a new compilation of Christmas music. Both albums are a combination of a cappella music and tracks with singing over recorded instrumentation.

They make it back to Alaska every year and a half or so.

“Most of our immediate family moved away, but we still have some extended family and just a lot of friends from all the years we lived there,” Boudreaux said. “Even though we’ve been gone for 11 or 12 years, it’s still a homecoming for us, of sorts, coming back to Soldotna, and even Anchorage, Wasilla and Palmer. We look forward to it with great anticipation.”

This Hope will perform Christmas music at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 17, at College Heights Baptist Church and 7 p.m. Thursday at Soldotna Bible Chapel.

“This is a fun time for us. It’s kind of a change of pace, and our Christmas music is really upbeat and fun and it’s really a neat concert,” Boudreaux said.

Admission is free. There will be a free-will offering.

For more information and samples of the group’s music, visit www.thishope.org.

Missionaries hit high note in Instruments of Change

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

If a hole were drilled from Nikiski through the center of the Earth, it would come out near the Republic of South Africa.

“You can’t get any farther away than that,” said Verne Miller, of Nikiski.

Yet that’s where Miller and four others from the central Kenai Peninsula found themselves in August.

An eight-hour plane ride from Alaska to Atlanta, a nine-hour layover and another 20-hour flight later, the group arrived in Johannesburg, bound for Kimberly, South Africa, to share their knowledge of music and love of God with children there.

Mike and Angie Lyons, Yvonne Emery and Susan Shisler, all of Soldotna, joined Miller and two music professors from Texas, Mike and Beverly Steinel, to participate in the Instruments of Change missionary program Aug. 6 to 22.

Instruments of Change is an offshoot of the Covenant Children program, which provides safety, shelter, food, water, basic health care and education for orphans and other at-risk children and adults around the world, according to the program’s Web site.

A South African pastor had another vision of what Covenant Children could provide: music education.

“A music academy for the orphans and the street kids, so after they got out of school they would have something to do besides whatever other activities they had to be involved in, which usually aren’t good,” Miller said.

The decision to go to Africa was as roundabout as the plane trip it took to get there. The founder of Covenant Children, Ardith Blumenthal, and her husband, Andy, came from their home in New York City in March to visit Andy’s relatives on the central Kenai Peninsula. Word of mouth informed Ardith of Birch Ridge Community Church and its music program. She visited the church and gave a presentation about Covenant Children, the Instruments of Change program, and detailed the great need for help in the Republic of South Africa.

“The poverty down there is just pretty severe in a lot of the area,” Miller said. “AIDS is just such a huge devastator. Forty percent of the people are infected, so there’s a lot of orphans or soon-to-be orphans. … Some are fortunate enough to have grandparents, but most of them don’t.”

Only Shisler had prior missionary experience. But they all had musical and educational experience to spare.

Miller played with the U.S. Navy in 1983, the Kenai Community Band from 1994 to 1997, the Kenai Peninsula Orchestra since the early 1990s, the Kenai Dixieland Band and Dixie River Rats since 1994 and has been a member of the pit orchestra for Kenai Performers shows for years.

Mike and Angie Lyons studied music at Northwest Nazarene College in Idaho. He’s now a music teacher at Cook Inlet Academy, where she teaches kindergarten. Yvonne Emery just retired from a long career as a music teacher in Soldotna elementary schools, and now is a part-time vocal teacher at CIA. Shisler has taught music and been involved in the Youth With a Mission program, and did a summer tour with the Continental Singers missionary group years ago.

If it’s a woodwind instrument, Mike Lyons and Miller can play it. Mike and Angie Lyons play percussion, and Angie also plays trombone and sings. Shisler plays guitar, she and Emery play piano and keyboard, and all the women on the trip sing. Mike Steinel, from Texas, teaches brass instruments, so they had all the bases covered

But musical knowledge only goes so far without instruments to bring it to life. So the group set about collecting and repairing donated instruments for kids in South Africa. After a donation drive on the peninsula and Texas, the group was able to transport more than 40 woodwind and brass instruments, nearly 200 recorders, about 15 melodicas (an accordian-type instrument with a keyboard that you blow into to produce sound), nearly 50 pairs of drumsticks, and hundreds of copies of music lesson books that Steinel had written.

To start their music camp, the mission group gave a little concert, and got a sense for the native music used in worship services.

“They lit up. They really liked the music,” Miller said. “They were excited about what we could do. Music is a big part of their worship down there. They just put their whole heart and soul into it, and it was fun to watch.”

Two hundred fifty students from third grade up to high school participated in the music camp. After just a week of instruction, the camp culminated in a concert at a tent-revival worship service with about 1,000 people in attendance.

“That’s how quickly they learned,” Miller said. “…The church was very supportive. Just the look on their faces. I still look at those pictures, and it was just very rewarding.”

With songs like “Hot-Crossed Buns” and “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” the program would have been more conventional for a U.S. beginning music performance, but the African audience loved it just the same, Miller said.

“It wasn’t any concerto, but they all played and it was really fascinating. They were able to play these songs together. … You get 250 kids together singing at the top of their lungs, 200 recorders, and 45 drummers going at once, it’s pretty awesome, I tell you what.”

The camp and concert was enough to make the group want to go back. Touring the countryside after camp was over and hearing about the additional unmet needs there just put an exclamation point on their desire to continue the mission.

The group is planning another trip from the end of June through early July next summer. They hope to make the program sustainable by developing the older students’ talents, so they can teach the younger ones.

“We saw this as an opportunity to really help out, and give back to an area that really needs the help,” Miller said. “… We just felt that, for us, there was a need there and we were ideally suited to fit that need.”

Even though the group went to give, they got something in return.

“We could learn a lot — we did learn a lot,” Miller said.

“I was just impressed with the spirit of worship people have down there. They’re a very warm people and extremely appreciative of anything you can do for them. It was inspiring for us to see people living in conditions that are so difficult, yet they have a spirit that is very pleasant and upbeat. If we were living like that, we’d all be singing the blues.”

The group is collecting instruments for its next trip. Playable are preferred, but they’ll take and fix whatever they can get. Monetary donations can be made at Wells Fargo Bank in Soldotna, to the Instruments of Change, Covenant Children account.

Luck o’ the central peninsula — Irish folk singer sets eyes smiling

By Jenny Neyman
Redoubt Reporter

Audience members wondering what Irish folk singer Fiona Molloy will perform Friday in Soldotna may be surprised to know it’s as much up to them as it is to her.

Molloy said she doesn’t bother with a set list for performances because it inevitably ends up out the window before the concert is through. She prefers to listen to her listeners and take cues from them.

“I try to judge what the reaction from the audience is,” she said. “I do a couple standards just to get people humming or singing along and get them into things, and take it from there.”

Molloy has plenty of directions she could travel, from her previously released CDs to her in-progress new album, which is an international collection of folk songs in French, German and Spanish. But she never strays too far from her roots.

“I usually stay pretty close to the Irish and folk music,” she said.

Molloy was born in Northern Ireland, and was part of the women’s peace movement there. She moved to London, then New York.

“I walked off the plane in JFK and said, ‘This is where I should be.’ I spent the next seven years proving to American immigration that they should keep me here.”

Molloy lived in New York for 23 years and moved to Wisconsin seven years ago, where she lives with her husband, Walter. She plays all over the country and on cruises that bring her in contact with people from beyond the Lower 48. She was playing with Seamus Kennedy — a name well-known to Irish music fans in Alaska for his many visits north — on a Caribbean cruise last year when she met Pat and Mark Ryan, of Anchorage. Pat’s brother owns Chilkoot Charlie’s, in Anchorage, and asked if Molloy would be willing to come perform. That sent the local Irish phone tree into action, which resulted in Mike Sweeney setting up a concert at The Crossing in Soldotna.

At this point in Molloy’s career, she picks and chooses performance destinations.

“We’re pretty settled in life. We tend to take bookings where we want to go,” she said.
Alaska was an easy choice.

“I think Alaska is amazing, beautiful and friendly. I wish I could spend months here, although since I work October through April in Key West and Marco Island (Fla.), I might like to miss the winter months,” she said.

Last year’s Alaska performances were in September. The fall weather didn’t temper the warm reception she received.

“It was terrific. There were really, really good audiences. I felt really good about the performances,” she said. “I judge performances by how people respond to them and how many people come up to talk to me afterward. In Soldotna, in particular, some of them lined up to see me.”

Some of the questions regarded when Seamus Kennedy might make another appearance on the central Kenai Peninsula, but since Molloy has known him for 30 years, she didn’t mind giving updates on her friend, she said.

All in all, with moose sightings, a distant bear viewing and up-close view of the Kenai River, Molloy was ready to commit to a return trip.

Plus, she didn’t get a chance to sample any smoked salmon last time, which was a disappointment, she said.

“I was just sort of praying they would ask me back again this year, and they did,” she said. “Everybody was just great. They’re lovely people up there, just friendly and outgoing, and when they discover you’re not from there, they try to go out of their way to tell you where to go. It was a great time.”

The performance is a fundraiser for the Kenai Peninsula Literacy Program. Sweeney, with the help of community sponsors, has been raising money for the organization by bringing Irish musicians to town for more than 10 years now.

Proceeds from ticket sales go directly to the program, which then provides grants to local elementary schools, like Kalifornsky Beach, Redoubt and Soldotna elementary schools, to buy reading materials or otherwise support literacy.

“There are a lot of good causes out there, but my wife is a first-grade teacher. She loves teaching reading. That is the big thing in first grade, if you can get your kids to read your first year, it makes life a lot easier, and that’s been an important thing,” Sweeney said. His wife, Gloria Sweeney, teaches at K-Beach Elementary.

Tickets are $15, available in advance at Sweeney’s. The performance is at 8 p.m. Friday at The Crossing. The next fundraiser for the Kenai Peninsula Literacy Program will be in February, when Seamus Kennedy will perform.