By Paul Keating

One of the more colorful traditions associated with an Irish Christmas is the Wren Boys and the custom of visiting from house to house offering a bit of song or music in exchange for a small treat or coin.

Two Irish groups have developed their own approach to this Christmas tradition.

On an ambitious 15 gig tour are Teada (pronounced tay-da), with a show they are calling “An Irish Christmas in America” and it features special guest artists like singer Cathie Ryan, harpist Grainne Hambly and piper Tommy Martin to augment the well-travelled quintet.

Led by fiddler Oisin MacDiarmada, Teada members are Sean McElwain (guitar/bouzouki), Paul Finn (accordion), Damien Stenson (flute) and bodhran player Tristan Rosenstock, who looked for a broader approach on this tour.

With their last album for Green Linnet entitled Give Us a Penny and Let Us Be Gone, previously proclaimed in verse by the Wren Boys as they travelled from house to house, they didn’t have to look very far for a central theme for the new show.

The December timing was ideal for breaking out of their usual performance format of hardcore trad music and allowing the twentysomething members of the band to explore some ancient Irish folklore.

They struck up a great musical friendship with Cathie Ryan on a joint tour last year in New Mexico and looked for an opportunity to perform together again.

The chance to highlight two of Ireland’s symbolic instruments in the harp playing of Hambly and uilleann pipes with Tommy Martin rounds out the show even more. Local dance troupes were invited to perform as well so the package is complete for a night of great entertainment.

The tour begins out west in Arizona and California on December 1 and concludes on December 18 in Earleville, New York.

Their East Coast appearances are — December 9 at the National Geographic Auditorium in Washington D.C., December 11 in Manhattan at Joe’s Pub in the East Village for three one-hour shows (3, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.), December 14 in Lakewood at the Strand Theatre and the following night in Morristown, New Jersey at the Morristown Unitarian Fellowship. Full details of the tour and the show can be found at www.teada.com.

Nothing surpasses the Christmas message of giving to the less fortunate and the tour has an “unofficial” sponsor in the Irish relief agency Concern which is always there to help alleviate human suffering around the world and most recently for the victims of earthquake in Pakistan. There will be information at all the shows on how we can all help.