PORT ANGELES — You might want to brace yourself for the Gaelic title.
Then, when you translate “Ainneoin na Stoirme,” Téada’s most recent album, you’ll recognize the theme which, in English, means “In Spite of the Storm.”
That’s how Irish music has been happening for a long while now, said Oisín Mac Diarmada, the group’s fiddler and founder.
Téada will bring their rain- and turmoil-defiant sound to the Naval Elks Lodge, 131 E. First St., at 6 p.m. Sunday.
The show is a Juan de Fuca Foundation for the Arts season concert, so tickets are at www.JFFA.org, Port Book and News in downtown Port Angeles and Dungeness Kids Co. in downtown Sequim.
Advance prices are $25 for adults and $10 for youngsters 14 and under; at the door, it’s $5 more.
The venue, with its ballroom floor and beverage service, was chosen for this St. Patrick’s Day warmup; “If you’re ready to jig,” said foundation Executive Director Kayla Oakes, “the bar will be open.”
This music, complex as it can be, runs on a sense of fun, Mac Diarmada said. Ireland’s traditional sound is both food for people who are struggling and a tonic for celebrating life — whether times are bad or good.
Mac Diarmada chose the fiddle when he was a boy of 6 in County Sligo, in the northwest of Ireland. He’s never felt the need to take up another instrument. Three and a half decades hence, he travels with a single fiddle, listening for its lessons.
This one he said, “is like an old friend I’ve gotten to know over the years.”
Téada, the Gaelic word for strings, also features Irish singer-accordionist Séamus Begley, Damien Stenson on flutes and whistles, Tristan Rosenstock on guitar and bodhran and Paul Finn on button accordion. Sean Gavin, an unofficial member of the band, plays the beloved uilleann pipes.
“He’s one example of the great Irish musicians who grew up in the United States,” Mac Diarmada noted, adding he was a teenager when first wowed by Gavin’s playing.
Now nearing 20 years together, Téada has traveled the globe, playing traditional Irish music for audiences of varying sizes. The group has been part of the Penang Music Festival in Malaysia and the Harare International Festival of the Arts in Zimbabwe. Tour dates have included a 30,000-capacity stadium show in Brittany and 2014’s seven-week tour of Japan and Taiwan.
The current tour has brought the men to San Francisco, Arcata and Berkeley, Calif., Ashland, Ore., the Triple Door in Seattle and five more Pacific Northwest dates, all before returning to Ireland for the Tullamore Tradfest on April 3.
Jeff Meade, an editor on www.IrishPhiladelphia.com, touts the group for “resurrecting the great old stuff and making it seem like new stuff … There’s something different and rare” about these musicians, who “know how to fill every corner of a room with rich, gorgeous sound.”
Sunday will be Téada’s first trip to Port Angeles. Mac Diarmada has heard audiences here give live, traditional music an enthusiastic embrace — so “we’re made for each other,” he said.
“Séamus is the kind of singer who loves to ask the audience for requests,” from the stage and during the break.
So “every night is different. The spontaneity is what we like.”
“As Irish musicians playing the far-flung corners of world, [we find] traditional Irish music is relatable, regardless of whether you have Irish background in your genealogy,” Mac Diarmada added.
“It’s a very entertaining style of music whether you know it intimately or not,” coming as it does from the pubs and cottages where neighbors and families get together at night.
The Irish “work hard,” he said, “and they know how to enjoy themselves.”
