By: Denise Foley

Noel Hill signs for Den Vykopal

His Anglo concertina is not much bigger than a Quaker Oats box, but when Noel Hill plays it, he sometimes sounds like a one-man band. One flashing hand produces melody, the other harmony, and to this richness he adds percussion: his feet tapping the wooden floor and the buttons, which clack like spoons. When he plays a slow air, he coaxes from the concertina a heart-rending quiver, as poignant as a sob. But when he takes on a reel, the audience adds another element: “Wooo!”

Hill, considered one of the greatest concertina players in the world, performed to a seriously “wooo” prone crowd on Thursday, Nov. 30, at Philadelphia’s Irish Center. And it was doubly a rare treat: Hill doesn’t tour often, and he was in the U.S. for only three east coast concerts. He also brought with him his first new CD in 18 years. “The Christmas sale is about to start now,” he joked with the audience, many of whom bought more than one.

The County Clare native (“As we say, born, bred, and starved in West Clare,” he quipped) has translated many standard piping tunes—from the likes of Seamus Ennis and Willie Clancy—for the concertina. He’d heard many of them as a young child, lying in bed at night, listening to the music coming from his kitchen. “Consequently all this music is in the back of my head because I heard it before I started playing,” he explained. In fact, while taking requests, he would occasionally pause a moment, his eyes closed, as if accessing this childhood database.

Several audience members had seen Hill before, but long ago. After the show, local fiddler Kitty Kelly recalled a concert in 1979. “You put me in a trance then, and you put me in a trance tonight,” she told Hill.