St. Paddy's show gives a taste of Ireland

The Alexandria Area Arts Association (AAAA) will present the eighth annual St. Paddy’s Show, with the award-winning Skilly and Duff Irish Band, on Sunday, March 17 at the AAAA Theatre.

There will be a matinee show only, with doors opening at 1 p.m. and the show at 2 p.m.

Mikko Cowdery of Osakis staged the first area St. Paddy’s Day show in 2005, and most of the annual shows have been performed as fundraisers for the AAAA Theatre.

Throughout the years, Cowdery has been joined by musicians from across the region, and over time, some of them formed an Irish pub-style band.

In 2009, Cowdery, along with Bruce Kelly and Annie O’Flynn of Elbow Lake and Sami Steidl of Carlos, took their Skilly and Duff Irish Quartet to the Irish Fair of Minnesota in St. Paul, where they captured first place in the Celtic music competition.

Since then, the Skilly and Duff band has performed across Minnesota and neighboring states and has toured southern Ireland as well as the Irish communities of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island.

This year’s Skilly and Duff St. Paddy shows will be performed in Fargo-Moorhead, New London, Alexandria and Graceville.

This year’s show includes 14-year-old songstress Lily Satterlee of Sauk Centre, the fiddle magic of Sami Steidl and the brightly costumed Irish dancers, the Swelstad sisters of Battle Lake. The Swelstads were first-place winners of this year’s regional talent competition at A Center for the Arts in Fergus Falls.

Tickets are $15 and are available from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily at the theater box office in Alexandria or by calling (320) 762-8300.

Tags: st patrick, variety, ireland, entertainment