The 12 months from September 2010 to end of August 2011 have seen an unprecedented rise in the profile of the club reflected in growing numbers of pupils and tutors, the success of club projects, the numerous and diverse invitations to perform at home and abroad, the success of pupils in the LCM exams, recording programmes for UTV., RTE., and BBC., the establishment of the Mark Donnelly Bursary, the launch of the film ‘A perfect passion’, the exchange with Feis an Earraich, the 17th WKPF, the 12th Trad at the Trian series and the list goes on.
SEPTEMBER 2010
Registration on Monday 6th heralded the start of yet another year in the life of the club and the build up to the 45th Anniversary celebrations.While all these activities highlighted different aspects of the club activities throughout the year the mainstay of the club was the ongoing weekly classes for some 250 pupils under the direction of 34 tutors. The success of the classes has been built on almost 45 years of dedicated work. The club is in a process of continual renewal with the pupils of yesterday moving on to become the teachers of today. The support and dedication of parents is fundamental to this process. This dedication which sees many parents making enormous sacrifices in the interests of their children, like driving round trips of anything from 1 to 3 hours weekly, has to be flagged up and respected.
Long may this threefold co-operation between parents, teachers and pupils thrive and keep the club going for another 45 years at least.
OCTOBER 2010
Brona Graham on banjo and Mark Dunlop on vocals featured at the October Trad at the Trian concert on Friday 1st October with master-classes on Saturday 2nd.
NOVEMBER 2010
The big event this month was of course the 17th William Kennedy Piping Festival which as usual brought musicians from all over the world to perform at this unique festival. The club hosted a 12 strong group from the Isle of Skye under the Feis an Earraich exchange programme. Club members contributed hugely to the festival with groups such as Macha and Canntaireachd playing at the big concerts, featuring in the Ioscaid gig at the Hooley in Hotel and everyone pulling their weight in numerous voluntary roles including airport pick ups, helping at concerts, selling raffle tickets and helping run the festival shop.
The awarding of the inaugural Mark Donnelly Bursary funded by the Donnelly family took place at the uilleann pipe concert with Conor Mallon taking the award and runner-up awards going to Caoimhin O Caolain and Ciaran Breen. The William Kennedy Festival also featured two showings of Sally Walmsley’s wonderful film about the club entitled ‘A perfect passion’.
Also in November 5th we had another great Trad at the Trian night featuring accordionist Gerry Lappin and singer Rosie Stewart.
DECEMBER 2010
Trad at the Trian in December featured young musicians from the club Niall Murphy on fiddle and Niall Hanna vocalist. This was a very important concert showcasing young talent from the club.
JANUARY 2011
The big event on the January calendar is ‘Burns Night’ which this year was a wonderful success once again. The event has now been held for a few years in the Pearse Og social club thanks to the support from the club.Fiona Kelleher from Cork and Caoimhin Vallely now living in Cork were the featured guests in the first event of the New Year Trad at the Trian with the concert on Friday 7th and the master-classes on the 8th.
The highlight of the month had to be the invitation to give two concerts during the world famous Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow. The concerts on consecutive nights 20th and 21st in the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow featured Macha presenting a programme of songs in Irish and Scottish Gaelic.
FEBRUARY 2011
The 2nd term started off on February 11th with a wonderful Trad in the Trian concert featuring singer and flute player Christine Dowling and husband Martin a great fiddle player. This was a rare opportunity to hear this couple live and experience a workshop with such masters of their art the following morning.Youthnet Recording Project
In 2010 our development officer Grainne Crothers secured funding from Youthnet for a group from the club to work on a recording project aimed at creating their own CD. This culminated in a full day’s recording at the Southern Regional College Armagh Campus on Friday 22nd October 2010.
During the day the Armagh Pipers Club group worked from 9am to 5pm under the direction of the technical staff and senior students from the College. The production end of things was under the direction of Niall Vallely from Crow Valley Music Studios Cork. This was a very important interactive day involving every aspect of the new recording suite installed last year at the College.
The project was based on the concept of a group of music students from the Armagh Pipers Club working together to produce a CD on their own - starting with forming the group, selecting the tunes and songs, rehearsing together, finalising arrangements, preparing sleeve notes, designing the CD and finally recording everything.
The CD was launched on 26th February in De Averell House with a great music session.
MARCH 2011
The big March event was the 45th Annual Armagh Pipers Club concert on the 13th which was a wonderful success with perhaps the best audience for many years. This concert is the annual showcase for the club with all the classes coming together in mixed ability groups under the direction of their tutors to present innovative and challenging sets of music, song and dance.The concert was also the opening event of the St Patrick’s Day festivities which culminated in two important concets on the 18th & 19th March. The concert on the 18th featured ‘Canntaireachd’ and Macha as well as Ioscaid which includes quite a few of our members. The Navan Centre was packed to the doors for this concert with many disappointed people who didn’t get tickets in advance. The following night the venue was St Patrick’s Church of Ireland Cathedral where former pupils of Armagh Pipers Club played to a sellout audience. The two groups involved were Brian Finnegan’s ‘Flook’ and the band Buille featuring Niall and Caoimhin Vallely backed by Donal Lunny with vocals from Karan Casey.
The March Trad at the Trian featured concertina player Padraig Rynne and vocalist Cathal Lynch who both took master-classes on the Saturday.
CEILI HOUSE RECORDING
The club also did a Ceili House recording on Sunday March 20th with guest musicians Niall and Caoimhin Vallely and singer Karan Casey. This was an hour long programme and featured instrumental and vocal pieces from club members.
APRIL 2011
The big event in April was the biannual trip to Skye for the exchange with Feis an Earraich. The group travelled in two mini-buses taking the Belfast/Stranraer ferry and then driving through the magnificent Scottish highlands where they eventually crossed the new Skye Bridge into the island. The group departed on April 10th and returned on the 16th. As usual this was a very worthwhile exchange on both a cultural and a social level. Our members took part enthusiastically in a huge range of activities from instrumental and singing classes to dancing classes and ceilis to shinty games and a talent competition organised by the pupils. The group played at the opening ceili night and also took part in various groups at the final concert. This project was generously supported by Colmcille.On the 2nd & 3rd of April we had the Spring LCM exams while on Friday 1st the final Trad at the Trian concert took place with uilleann piper Tiarnan O Duinnchinn and singer/composer Ger Wolfe from Cork. The Saturday workshops were well attended and Ger Woulfe introduced the singers to the art of song writing.
MAY 2011
On May 26th members of the club spent an afternoon at the Navan Centre where they were recording playing music and being interviewed by Malachy Cush for his programme on UTV featuring Armagh.
JUNE 2011
In June we had the 3rd round of the London College of Music exams which now feature very much in the club curriculum. Since these graded exams were introduced some years ago pupils and teachers from the club have performed to a very high level with many Grade 8 distinctions being awarded. The academic aspect to traditional music is also being increasingly reflected in the numbers progressing to 3rd level music degree courses in Cork and Derry.In June we also had two singing sessions on Saturday 11th for the younger singers who attend the 6pm singing class and the intermediate and senior singers. Once again the older singers gathered in the Armagh Public Library for a wonderful night of singing and socialising in the beautiful surroundings of the old library. Then on Sunday 12th we had the annual teachers barbeque accompanied by the torrential rain that we’ve come to expect. Monday 13th the final ‘family session’ took place in the Pearse Og social club.
June 4th saw club members participating in a sponsored session at Sainsbury’s. This was very well received and valuable funds were raised to help cover the mounting costs of running the club. Sincere thanks to all those who gave up part of the day to play at this event.
JULY 2011
Canntaireachd were invited to play at a concert in the Ulster Hall on July 28th which was part of the Belfast City Council ‘Piping is Class’ Festival built around the European Pipe Band Championships. This concert featured internationally renowned bands ‘Battlefield Band’ and ‘Red Hot Chili Pipers’. The group had played the previous year at this festival in the Europa Hotel so it was great to be invited back.
Brian and Eithne Vallely attended the Ceolas festival from the 4th to the 9th of July in South Uist one of the Western Isles included in the Outer Hebrides. This festival reflects the sort of ethos that the club represents - the bringing together of the various strands of Gaelic culture represented through music, song, dance, art and sense of place.
AUGUST 2011
The year ended with an action packed month of August including invitations to perform at the opening of the Transplant Games in the Waterfront Hall on Thursday 4th August and again on Friday 5th when the club performed for the invited guests of the Games in Belfast City Hall.The following week a 14 strong group travelled to Glasgow for the 8th Piping Live Festival where they performed at a whole range of events including ‘Piobairean nam Orain’ which was televised for BBC ALBA, the Scottish Gaelic TV station.
Invitations were also received for the Charles Wood Summer School with a concert in Armagh 1st Presbyterian Church on the 23rd and another concert on the 27th during the An Droichead Festival in Belfast.
