The info re Celtic College in Goderich, Ontario, is finally up on the website.
If you have never been to this amazing week, it really is something to consider.
http://www.celticfestival.ca/
Jen and I are extra excited this year because two of the groups providing teachers (Matt & Shannon Heaton and Genticorum) are playing at the Saline Celtic Festival two weeks before. We’ll get a chance to hear/meet/hang out/session with them before we go take classes from them at Goderich.
Should be a very exciting three weeks for us!
Still, it will be hard to top having Liz Carroll & John Doyle at Goderich last year…
This will be my first year at the Celtic College, looking forward to it.
MarkB
MArk, where are you coming from?
Have you booked accomodation yet? Good idea to book early.
Look forward to meeting you. Have you decided which classes you are interested in? Sometimes it is hard to choose when you don’t know of the teachers, and while some can be great players, they are less than great teachers. You cannot go wrong with a class from Loretto Reid.
liz
Lizzie stated:
MArk, where are you coming from?
I don’t know Lizzie, everybody always asks me that! If you asking where I live now, it’s Windsor, Ontario.
Intermediate Flute with Shannon Heaton and Jeremia McDade, hopefully intermediate whistle with Loretta Reid and Quebois Repertoire with Alexandre de Grosbois Garand.
I will staying at the Dunlop Motel just out of town.
MakrB
That’s “Quebecois Repertoire on Wooden Flute (for all instruments)”? I’m figuring that will be my first class of the day as well – sounds very cool to me.
I’ll probably end the day with “Chicago Style Session Tunes”, and the middle is hard to figure yet.
Colomon wrote:
That’s “Quebecois Repertoire on Wooden Flute (for all instruments)”? I’m figuring that will be my first class of the day as well – sounds very cool to me.
Sounds way cool! We had a French-Canadien meloden player, who worked for the Radio-Canada here in Windsor for a while, and he played a lot of Quebecois music that I trualy fell in love with, and I am really hoping to get a feel for the music this summer at Goderich.
See you bright and somewhat early in the morning!
MarkB
Alexandre is an awesome flute player; he has a Hammy Hamilton flute and he makes it roar. And he’s a lovely guy, with the biggest brightest smile you’re likely to see in your life. You’ll have fun!
Sweet! I’m really looking forward to meeting him at the Saline Festival this year. We don’t get nearly enough Quebecois tunes out this way; it’s not unusual for Goderich and the Wheatland Traditional Arts Weekend (in central Michigan) to be the only times of the year I get to play them.
MArk, I’ll see you in Loretto’s class!
I want to do an ensemble class and there are two in the time slots for me…with bohola or the Heatons .. any idea which would be best?
Liz
Not in the least. 
I can say I really enjoyed the Heatons’ ensemble class last year. It was effectively a “playing in sessions” class. I didn’t need that aspect of it, but we did learn some nice tunes in the process, so I was quite happy in it. I thought they were good teachers.
Bohola goes in for those complicated arrangements of tunes, playing tunes six or seven times in a row and varying the voicings and dynamics. Based on that, I’d expect their ensemble class to be more ensemble-y, if that makes any sense – doing carefully planned interesting things with a small group of people. I’ve never had a class from any of them before, but I’ve sold their CDs at their concerts a couple of times, and they seemed like nice people.
BTW, Lizzie, I got my Celtic College CD yesterday. I see Loretto was indeed influenced by your copy of The Mountain Road. Sweet!
Mine has not arrived. Did she include Mountain Road on it?
Liz
We are coming up from Kansas! It will be our first year and we are camping at the Point Farms Provincial park just outside of town. (Is anyone else doing this?)
I have signed up for foot percussion, bodran, Ensemble with the Heatons, and the intermediate whistle class from Reid. I hope that this is not too
ambitious!
I also just bought a minidisc recorder to capture the classes on. Is recording encouraged or discouraged at the college?
The others in my family are going to take craft classes. They are excited too!
I am looking forward to meeting everyone and enjoying Canada and Michigan for a while. I grew up in Ann Arbor and we have relatives across the state that we will visit before and after the College and Festival.
See you all in a month!
JBunch
She did not. She included “Brendan Tonra’s” and “Lakes of Sligo.” (And another tune, “Strawberry Blossom” (which I know as “Boys of Ballinahinch”) which I associate very strongly with South Sligo – I’ve got recordings of both Peter Horan and Fred Finn playing it – but isn’t in The Mountain Road.)
It’s officially encouraged for classes, and we’ve never gotten in trouble for recording pretty much everything that happens musically in town that week.
I just decided on the spur of the moment to attend the Celtic College this year. I was concerned that my son would be here that week but he’ll be here before that. So I’ll see you all there. You’ll have a good time Mark. I’m taking advanced whistle with Loretto. Other than that I’ll be taking dulcimer classes.
Steve
-Green with envy here-after lots of childhood time in Bayfield to south of Goderich. -Haven’t been there in twenty five years but recall an RV park on the north shore of the Bayfield river where it meets the lake-perhaps a reasonably priced lodging option for Goderich attendees. OTOH, stay at Bayfield’s Little Inn if money is no object for nice rooms and superb meals. I don’t know if the historic old Albion hotel there is still in operation. My parents once served bucket brigade duty in Bayfield to help quell a fire at the Ritz hotel in the 1950’s. A quick zip up the highway north gets to Goderich thirteen miles later.
Steve I will be staying at the Dunlop Motel just out of town and it will be good to see you again.
Johnbunch, welcoming you to Canada, to find me in the crowd, I most of the time wear an all black ball cap with a big white embossed @ on the front.
MarkB
Hope I get a chance to meet both of you there.
Colomon, re your previous post and the pieces from Mountain Road…The only one I saw there was Lakes of Sligo.
Lizzie
“Brendan Tonra’s” is track 22 of The Mountain Road, and Loretto definitely plays it on the session CD, not sure what track number.