On Friday 30 November at 7:00pm, a YouTube stream of the previously unseen main culture show from Armagh’s East West Culture Festival in October 2000; several APC students were involved and Eithne is also playing! https://youtu.be/_04ejFPcjWo

For International Uilleann Piping Day, Saturday 7 November, Armagh Pipers Club will release a video of students, tutors and guest pipers, at 3pm.  If you would like to be part of this, contact us now.

17 October is National Harp Day – Lá na Cruite – and several Pipers Club harpers are performing in Harp Ireland’s online showcase for the premier national instrument. So many musicians from all over the country are taking part that the video timetable runs on into the 18th. One of our two groups was on show on Saturday night, performing a piece by Anne-Marie O’Farrell, and the second group can be seen 1hr 34 mins into this Facebook segment, playing Carolan’s Welcome (as this year marks the 350th anniversary of Toirdhealbhach Ó Cearbhalláin’s birth).

Full details, and links to the performances, at https://www.harpireland.ie/national-harp-day-overview/harp-day-2020/

Students/parents: please make sure that you have noted down the days and dates of your recorded and Zoom lessons from your class page.  These were updated a couple of weeks ago to allow all the Zoom lessons to take place on Monday evenings, but if your computer has stored the old calendar and you haven’t cleared your broweser cache, you might still see the old version.  Here’s how to be sure: the new version has the words “revised calendar” at the top.  If you don’t see that, you need to clear your cache and reload the page.  

Students/parents should check the updated calendar at the top of each class page. The Club is reverting completely to Monday night teaching, so any Zoom classes previously scheduled for Tuesdays will now be managed by our expanded team of Zoom hosts. To fit in the extra classes, there are now four start times – 6.30, 7.00, 7.30 and 8.00 – and it is very important that students turn up on time for their class. Classes will still take up 40-50 minutes.

This change has been made to avoid a number of clashes with other cultural and sporting activities on Tuesdays.

We have taken the opportunity to move more of the junior classes (Levels 1 and 2) to the earlier start times, which might better suit our younger students. We have also weighted the live Zoom classes more towards Levels 1-3, where students will get three (or four) Zoom and seven (or six) recorded lessons.

Feedback from students and parents is always welcome. You can contact us through the website.

We hope you are enjoying your new term’s online tuition, and in particular the opportunity for live contact with tutors through the once-a-month Zoom lessons. This week’s programme sees the third set of Zoom lessons, so that every class group will have had two recorded and one live lesson.

Our new programme launched with Zoom sessions timetabled for Tuesdays, as well as the Monday evenings that have traditionally been reserved for Pipers Club activities. We now know of some Tuesday clashes with the other commitments of our students and tutors, so we are investing in staffing and technology to increase the number of Zoom classes that we can run on Mondays. Reorganising a timetable for 33 class groups is a pretty big exercise, but we aim to move to all-Monday Zooming by 19 October. Tutors, parents and students should check their class pages in the next week or two for updated timetables.

Please get in touch if you need any additional help with instrument tuning, etc.  Our students can order half-price copies of the famous APC tutor books, all of which have CDs included: go to our online shop for 50 Simple Tunes for the Tin Whistle, My Second Tune Book (“the yellow book”) or Jig It in Style (“the red book”).  Most Level 1 and Level 2 classes draw on these books, and it’s good to have a copy handy rather than download one tune at a time from your class page. To get your discount, remember to select the “registered student” option before checkout.

Just a tip from observing the first round of Zoom classes: the student should sit in a reasonably well-lit area. Back-lighting, for example if sitting in front of a window while it’s still daylight, can make it hard for the tutor to see you. We welcome any feedback from students about the Zoom lessons, the recorded lessons (usually released at 5pm on Mondays) or any other aspect of their online experience. We know it’s not the same craic as getting together with your friends in the classroom, and we look forward to a return to all of that, but your safety will always come first!

LCM exams for the foreseeable future will be held in two formats – online exams and recorded exams. Further details are on the LCM website. The closing date for this year’s Winter Session is extended to October 17^th. Any candidates who were entered through the Pipers Club for Spring exams can sit the next round of exams with no additional fee – however you must let us know. If you have already taken your exam online, please let us know how you got on so that we can keep a record of results.

Anyone else wishing to enter for the Winter Exams, please send your details – full name, address and date of birth, grade and instrument – to info@armaghpipers.com, and we will advise you of how to pay the entry fee.

Congratulations to Pipers Club past pupil and teacher, Emma Murphy, on her recent marriage to Paul Fox, and to teachers Ursula McAdam and Emmet Mulholland on their engagement.

Congratulations to our school-leavers and past pupils who have been successful in recent school and college exams. Sarah Byrne and Peter McKenna will study at St Mary’s University College in Belfast, and will no doubt contribute much to the musical life there. Annie Smyth goes off to Dublin City University to do a Business Studies course, and her sister Méabh will start a master’s course in Politics while preparing for the Bar exam. Miceál Mullen, having finished his music degree, is moving to Glasgow to take a postgraduate course there.

Congrats also to Eimhear Mulholland and Eugene McKenna on completing their postgrad course in Irish-medium education in St Mary’s. Eimhear is now teaching in Gaelcholáiste Dhoire, while Eugene takes up employment in Gaelscoil Aodha Rua in Dungannon.

Every year the family of Dick Macrae from Plockton in Scotland present an award to Armagh Pipers Club in his memory. Dick, a renowned weaver with a passionate interest in traditional music, travelled to the William Kennedy Festival for many years until his untimely death in 2013. The Award is presented to an individual or a family who have made an outstanding contribution to the Club.

Who would you nominate for battling through the challenges of 2020? We would like to hear from pupils and families about their musical journey through the lockdown, e.g. music they learned, online links with other musicians, tunes composed, new instrument taken up etc. We will make the award on November 7^th, International Uilleann Piping Day.

Keep Friday 9 October free!

For some years, Armagh Pipers Club has hosted concerts on Friday evenings featuring singers and instrumentalists of national renown. Formerly held in the St Patrick’s Trian complex in the city centre and called Trad at the Trian, these later moved to our premises in Scotch Street as Fonn Friday, and were followed by master classes for our students on the Saturday.

Like so many aspects of our cultural life, these concerts and master classes were interrupted in March by you-know-what. But just as the Pipers Club’s brilliant tutors have adapted to living inside your computers, we are now ready to bring back Fonn Fridays as an online experience!

The first event of this new era is at 8pm on Friday 9 October, featuring the brilliant Donegal singer Diane Ní Channain (Cannon) and the Monaghan harper Eilís Lavelle, whom we are fortunate to have as one of our tutors.

Diane comes from the Donegal Gaeltacht area of Mín Lárach near Gortahork, and inherits her music from all four grandparents who were accomplished singers and musicians. She recently won the prestigious Comórtas Cuimhneacháin Sheáin Óig Uí Thuama at Oireachtas na Gaeilge. Her new album, Idir Mhuir agus Sliabh, includes some lesser known songs from the area, many of which had not been previously recorded.

Éilis comes from Monaghan and began her musical education on the harp in the Pipers Club. She then went on to study music in Dublin and followed this with postgraduate research in Queen’s University. She has extensive performing and teaching experience throughout Europe, USA and Canada. Eilis has been teaching harp in APC since leaving college. In addition to her solo playing she has collaborated with other top musicians including Mark Redmond, Robert Harvey, Dónal O’Conor and John McSherry.

A link to the concert will be on the front page of our website, armaghpipers.com, and thanks to the support of our friends in the Arts Council, you will have to pay precisely nothing to enjoy the performances of these two very talented women.