2008 Instructors
Pipes
Mick O'Brien
Mick O'Brien is a highly regarded performer and teacher of the uilleann
pipes. Mick was born in Dublin into a very musical family, with all
five boys playing Irish music. Dinny, Mick's father, is an accordion and
whistle player and nurtured the love of traditional music in all the
lads. At the age of nine, Mick started learning the pipes in the famous
Thomas Street Pipers club in Dublin, which was also a meeting house for
musicians from all over the country. Now much in demand as a tutor,
Mick has travelled to Europe, Canada, and the USA conducting master
classes.
As a performer, Mick has broadcast on TV and radio extensively, both as a soloist and with various artists with whom he has made numerous recordings. For the past five years he has performed and travelled with the Norwegian group Secret Garden and has recorded on their last two albums, Dawn of a New Century and Once in a Red Moon. He has recorded with Charlotte Church, The Dubliners, The Boys of the Lough, Altan, and Charlie Lennon, to name a few and also performed on Broadway with the show Riverdance. In 1996, Mick released his first solo album entitled May Morning Dew to much critical acclaim from the traditional music world. In 2003, he and Dublin fiddle player Caoimhin O'Raghallaigh released Kitty Lie Over. Micks music has crossed many boundaries and styles through the years, but it is as a traditional uilleann piper that he is best known. His traditional style shows great delicacy and subtlety, strong in rhythm and enlivened by his unique inflections and nuances, his performances always throw new light on even the most familiar tune. He lives in Dublin where he is married with three children and is a full time schoolteacher.
Cormac Cannon
Cormac Cannon began learning the tin whistle from Mary Bergin at a young age and was introduced to the uilleann pipes by Tommy Keane, later benefiting from regular exposure to other prominent pipers during annual visits to the Willie Clancy summer school. He has a keen interest in the music of the older pipers and fiddle players, particularly the music of Clare and Kerry, and a preference for the sound of the flat-pitched pipes.
Cormac has toured and taught in Ireland, Japan, and throughout Europe; recorded for radio and television; and performed for Na Piobairi Uilleann as part of its ongoing series of recitals in The Cobblestone, Dublin.
Patrick D'Arcy
Patrick D'Arcy hails from Dublin, Ireland. Regular trips to the Willie Clancy Summer School as well as tionóil around America have enabled him to learn from many of today's great players. Touting Tommy Reck, Seamus Ennis and Willie Clancy as great influences, Patrick now enjoys passing on his knowledge to students at his home, at meetings of The Southern California Uilleann Pipers Club, and at tionóil whenever the opportunity should graciously arise.
Comfortably settled in his new habitat of California, he is a founding member of the Southern California Uilleann Pipers Club and its annual Southern California Tionól, which is currently celebrating its eighth year. He is also the host of the UilleannObsession.com website, which recently celebrated its tenth year
Ivan Goff
Born in Dublin, Ivan began playing the Irish tin whistle at the age of eight, progressing to the uilleann pipes at the age of eleven under the tuition of Dan O’Dowd (1903-1989) and later with Mick O’Brien. He won a number of competition titles at all age levels, including the All-Ireland Fleadh and Oireachtas, and he has featured in many productions including Riverdance on Broadway, the U.S. National and European tours of Riverdance, and Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance. Ivan has worked with the composer Jonathan Bepler in the latter’s score for the internationally celebrated film Cremaster 3 (Dir. Matthew Barney), and performed at the exhibition of this project at the Guggenheim Museum in 2003.
Ivan has performed with many bands and artists, including the internationally acclaimed Irish traditional bands Lúnasa and Dervish. Ivan is currently a member of Eileen Ivers and Immigrant Soul while continuing to perform as a solo artist. His publication credits include Selections from Riverdance for Pennywhistle (with accompanying CD), AMSCO Publications, New York: 2000. With a long list of radio and television performances from RTÉ to NBC, Ivan has many recording credits; among some of the most recent are Live at Mona’s and Riverdance on Broadway.
Debbie Quigley
Born in Newtownards, County Down, Debbie has been playing the tin whistle since her youth in Ireland. After immigrating to Canada with her parents as a teenager, Debbie undertook the study of the uillean pipes under the late Chris Langan. She was a founding member of the popular Toronto based traditional group Kitty's Kitchen and now plays with Tara Nova, another popular Toronto based traditional group.
Debbie has performed with symphony orchestras, recorded sound tracks for television shows and specials, regularly leads sessions in the Toronto area, has performed on CBC radio as well as on CDs with other musicians and has made numerous live solo appearances. She is a regular organizer of, and performer in, the annual Chris Langan Traditional Weekend in Toronto. Debbie is now one of the best and most respected uillean pipers in all of North America.
Cillian Vallely
Cillian took up his father’s instrument and polished his skills with tutelage from the late Armagh piper Mark Donnelly. His mastery of chanter, drones and regulators, and of all the accents and moods of the traditional piping idiom, place him in the first rank of today’s Irish pipers.
Cillian now tours with the group Lúnasa, and has also performed extensively in America with groups such as New York’s Whirligig and Paddy O’Brien’s Chulrua, and has appeared with fiddler Seamus Connolly, Riverdance on Broadway and Tim O’Brien’s The Crossing.
Reedmaking
Benedict Koehler
Born in Boston, Benedict grew up listening to recordings of Irish
traditional music sent over by his mother's family in Dublin. He took
up the pipes in his twenties and has listened to and learned from a
wide range of the older players, citing as particularly strong
influences the stately musical tradition of East Galway and the complex
and elegant piping style exemplified by the "gentlemen pipers" Seamus
Ennis and Liam O'Flynn. These influences are evident in Benedict's
graceful, lyrical style of playing.
Benedict and his wife, harper/button accordionist Hilari Farrington live in East Montpelier, Vermont where Benedict, in association with David Quinn, makes and restores uilleann pipes and continues to enhance his reputation as a superb reed maker.
Fiddle
Breda Keville
Breda’s musical influences come predominantly from older players ranging from Bobby Casey, Sarah and Rita Keane, to Paddy Fahey, Paddy Canny, and Joe Ryan to name a few. She has taught fiddle at various workshops over the years as well as individual instruction. She released her solo CD, The Hop Down, in July 2006 which was predominantly unaccompanied; it also features her sister Claire on fiddle and concertina, Liam Lewis on fiddle, and Terence O’ Reilly on guitar. Dermot McLaughlin describes The Hop Down, in JMI as follows:
“A recording like this is a cause for optimism at a time when so many accents and points of differencce are being smoothed out of traditional music in studio recordings and elsewhere. This hop down is really a big step up!”
Patrick Ourceau
Fiddler Patrick Ourceau originally hails from France,
and is a great interpreter of the old Clare music. Since moving to North America, Patrick has performed with many U.S.-based musicians,
including Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin, a renowned
County Clare concertina player now living in Saint Louis. Together
with Gearóid, Patrick has performed in concert and at festivals all across
Europe and North America. In 1999, they released Tracin', a recording featuring music from
Clare.
Patrick is in great demand as a teacher, and has taught at many festivals in the U.S. and Canada, including the Chris Langen Weekend in Toronto; the Saint Louis Irish Festival, and the Augusta Irish Week in Elkins, West Virginia. He has been part of the teaching staff at the Irish Arts Week in East Durham, New York, and at the Celtic College in Goderich, Ontario.