This is a great post Dave.
When you post a few sentences like above, before knowing what people have hidden on their camera/vid cam’s. Even years later people are suprised 
You’ll see what I mean… 
Daryl Mc.
Paul, can you put it up in something other than Quicktime? Maybe mpeg?
Daryl, are you saying you have me on camera picking my nose or something equally classy? Au secours! 
djm
“assets” - oopsy! Thx.
Yes, they were at it all the time (Caoimhín is just a little wired sometimes). 
djm
A superb weekend. Great job organizing committee. I’m a highly satisfied attendee. It needn’t be said again, but man, April sure beats January.
I was struck by the good nature of our instructors. It must be dull for people like Mick O’Brien and Benedict Koehler to attempt to teach to musical strugglers like me, but they did it with patience and humour. All greatly appreciated. Real gentlemen.
My favourite event was the informal “Piper’s Chair” event on Sunday afternoon. Great talent at all levels. Very enjoyable to see a range of pipers, from intermediates to world class pros, all enjoying it and encouraging one another.
Also great fun to put more faces to names from the Internet.
I’m currently playing/transferring the Epic Ennis Journey into a more global format. Besides the annoying photographer who is madly using the limited amount of light to capture a “still” image, the recording is quite acceptable. More to the point, this is fecking great music! Somehow I’m going to make this available to whoever wants it. The piece is only in about 9 minutes and not even halfway there. Mick has just started the whistle part.
Maybe because of the annoying camera clicks, I might have to set this music to a visual show. Not much I can do about coughs and sneezes 
Naw, I’m sure Paul will email it to me at some point…
Note: that set of pipes in my lap, in that photo, isn’t Mick’s set. Rather it’s George’s Taylor set. That’s right. It’s a Taylor set. No reeds or bag, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find myself playing it next year. The photo of me with Mick’s set was taken shortly after.
Report, eh, Steph? Well, now, where to start?
I suppose I’d better go chronologically.
Thursday was a glorious day of hiking at Mono Cliffs Provincial Park, with Caoimhin, organized by Wolf. Caoimhin had so much energy he was practically bouncing off the walls. After the hike. That night was the meet and greet. Five U-turns getting there. Yeah, I know, ‘U-turns’? Well, I’m a country boy… that’s a big deal for me… The meet and greet was a blast. Great music and talk.
Friday night was fun. We were treated to locals and not-so-locals playing for us. And the witty and informative MC-ing of Virgil. Learning how to salsa dance was quite fun! Meeting up with the fantastic fiddler Steph again was also a treat! Similarly for all the other people I met again or for the first time: Paul, Greg, Daryl, Dale, Wolf, John, Alec, George, the “elf”, Ian, Brad, Azalin, and I know I’m forgetting a few… too many names! There were some great sessions happening around the TRANZAC. It was quite hard to drag myself off to bed.
5 hours later, I was at the JCC, waiting to bask in Mick’s knowledge. And bask I did! I then headed to Caoimhin’s ‘learn a tune’ class, where he taught a room full of fiddlers and two guys on whistles how to play Mullin’s Fancy (at my request… I felt so important 
).
Interesting side note about hardangers: the fiddle Caoimhin brought along is tuned quite strange. I may be wrong, but from what I gathered it isn’t just tuned like a regular irish fiddle, but down to B, or like a traditional Norwegian hardanger is tuned. At any rate, I heard that he spent his first class using who ever’s fiddle he was closest to, to teach with. That changed for his second and last classes, when he was using my friend’s hardanger! (That is, the hardanger my friend made, and plays, sometimes, with me on pipes… we thought of it independently!) Caoimhin apparently got his from Norway, although second-hand, even though it’s only about five years old.
From there, it was a short session (where I played one of Chris’ tunes with Karen Light, ironically it was “A Cold Winter’s Day”) before we were off to the concert. I don’t mind rambling on about the rest, but I still have no words for the concert. It was fabulously amazing. And that doesn’t even begin to do it justice. I guess the only thing I can say is that I didn’t touch my pipes until the next day, and other than the piping recital thing, I still don’t want to… too much to absorb. It was inspiring though, too, so I’ll give it a bit of time, and I’ll be raring to play again!
Sunday came, although for some, without the customary break for sleep. Paul introduced me to George, a smallpiper, mhor-piper, and now uilleann piper, who just happens to own a Taylor set of pipes. I don’t know the exact details, but “being thrown out” and “cheap” are involved in the story. We explored our common repetoire, and discovered that we both knew “The March of The King of Laois”, “Blarney Pilgrim” and “The Drops of Brandy” well enough to play together for the recital. George treated us to a set of Border tunes, then called me up. We played our set, and he left, and I called up Alec, who I had only met on Friday. We played a set of reels and I left him up there. And a fine job he did, too. (I know I saw some surreptious recording, so if anyone has a clip of the smallpipe/uilleann pipe set, I’d be willing to work a trade…)
Well, that was about it for me… I revelled in the playing of Debbie and Benedict, and Mick and Caoimhin, and said some goodbyes. Had my picture taken by the famous Paul Reid with the Taylor set and with a flat set. (Oh wait, you ask… what’s this about Mick’s pipes??) Oh, well, it’s nothing much, but I got to try Mick’s pipes. They are quite hard to play, surprisingly so, but I managed to get a few Tommy Reck tunes out, and I think Mick even recognized them… although he was laughing at my inability to squeeze the bag hard enough.
Good times, good music, good friends.
Why so angry Mick when there is so much love 
Wish I was there, looks like a brilliant weekend! How could you go wrong with that line-up!>!>!>!?!?!
Patrick.
Who’s the dude with the Taylor set?
PD.
That’s Nick (NicoMoreno) holding the pipes. They belong to George Balderose of Pittsburgh, PA, to the pipers’ right.
I was opportune to take many close up and detail shots of the set – quite a beauty! Mick was able to find a working reed in George’s collection and had a go with it. The keys on the chanter made it possible to go to high F!
That’s a million dollar grin there Nick 
Nice catching up with you, and way to go with your piping - that’s a fine piece of work put in over the past year.
Come visit us here in Buffalo sometime!
I just listened to the “Epic Ennis Journey”
What a piece of amazing music. I am in awe.
Patrick.
It was a pretty polished bit of music. I asked Mick if that was planned for an upcoming CD and his eyes lit up as he smiled.
Fingers crossed!
djm
I’ve heard last weekend that something is in the works…unofficially speaking from a close source.
Daryl Mc.
Funny. Mick was saying to some of us that everytime they go on stage what gets played is quite organic. That is they never determine exactly how things are going to go and leave things open for improvisation.
I think it comes off as polished because they are master musicians to begin with. I also think it comes off as fantastic because they are both having a ball up there!
Paul
It is a wonderful way to play and to listen to great music. Years ago, back in Minnesota and back when I was still dreaming about someday owning a good set of pipes, I would attend many parties consisting of my musical buddies. We would drink, engage in other substances, and spend the entire evening playing music… just let the music “happen” where it wanted to happen and for however long it wanted too. I have many brilliant memories of these ‘jams’, where all involved took great joy in ‘weaving’ the music into joyous and intiricate patterns of unbelieveable tone and expression.
Listening to Mick and Caoimhín’s Epic Ennis set brought every last one of those old melodic echoes back to the front of my mind, with a new fondness and a new joy. Brilliant stuff, to say the very least.
I have posted many (and I do mean many) pix for perusal.
http://www.chrislangan.ca/html/photos-main.html
Cheers,
PR
I’d hate to tell him that he’s holding the chanter upside down!
Great picture- Was that done digitially and displayed in B&W or using HTG B&W film???
Great photos,thanks for shareing them.
I can see my friend Kaoru Nakajima,Japanese fiddler now staying in Tronto
By the way Is the Taylor style set in the photos a new creation of Koehler & Quinn? Very lovely.