Teen to help Chieftains ‘spread’ Celtic music

Imagine being a teenager with your favorite rock star’s poster hanging prominently on your bedroom wall and, as fate would have it, that star comes to your town and asks you to join the band onstage.

Well, what’s happening to 15-year- old Westminster student Harrison Parker tonight isn’t exactly that.

He has classic oil paintings by a family friend hanging in his room in Buckhead, not posters.

And he and about 10 other members of Stone Mountain’s Atholl Highlanders Pipes and Drums will be playing Celtic music, not rock.

Still, the ninth-grader says he thinks it’s “huge, absolutely huge” to join iconic Irish folk act the Chieftains at the Fox Theatre, where Parker has seen “lots of professional grade stuff.”

“Lovely,” the Chieftains’ Paddy Moloney said by phone this week. For years now the group, which has been around for nearly five decades, has asked promoters to invite local musicians to play with them on their tours.

“I remember one time we played Atlanta it was pandemonium,” Moloney recalled. “Thirty-six musicians turned out. It was tremendous for us —- because it’s just good camaraderie. We want to keep this great tradition alive … but with 36 more people up there, the promoters went berserk.”

On the other hand, Parker, who’s been a pipes player for almost three years, appears rather calm about the opportunity.

That might be in part because he lost his maternal grandmother a few days ago. (He played “Amazing Grace” at her funeral.)

“This is huge, not because I’m attempting to achieve fame,” Parker said, “but because I get to spread some music to people in a time of mourning for some, like me. Or hopefully in a time of celebration for many others … including me, too.”

IN CONCERT

The Chieftains

8 tonight. $35-$75. Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. Ticketmaster, 404-249-6400, www.ticketmaster.com.