After reading the posts on the first week thread, I thought this topic deserved a thread of its own.
I got my first ‘real’ intro to Irish trad at Augusta’s Irish week in 1987. I took the whistle class (which was an all level class of whistle, flute and uileann pipes, 21 people!), Jerry O’ Sullivan was teaching (the man deserved an award for his patience alone). When I took up piping, I got my pipes in the mail in Dec 1990, practiced on my own for 6 months, and then headed off to Augusta to do a crash course in pipes (by that time, they were offerring a separate pipe class). As an isolated piper, this was a great thing for me-go to Augusta every summer, get a years’ worth of practice tapes and then go back to Augusta for more.
I haven’t been in a couple of years but am going this summer with several other people to have an Augusta reunion…Augusta has their website up for 2003 and Jerry O is teaching pipes, Louise Mulcahy-whistle (she is also a very fine piper), and John Skelton is teaching flute. Unfortunately, Augusta only allows the students to take one class so I’ll have to make a decision as to which one to take…