This weekend marked the 12th Annual Chris Langan weekend in Toronto. We were privileged to have Cillian Vallely, Tommy Peoples and Harry Bradley partake in the fine concerts and workshops.
Saturday night was a huge treat inside Trinity St. Paul’s Church. An incredible setting with the enormous organ pipes in the background. The stage was graced by David Papazian and friends (fiddlers), Patrick Hutchinson (uilleann pipes), Aine Meenaghan (sean-nós singing), Pat O’Gorman (Highland Pipes and Uilleann Pipes), and a special encore appearance by a 90+ year old gentleman named Marty O’Keefe who dazzled us on the concertina. What a charmer!
The second half of the show was nothing short of brilliant with Harry Bradley accompanied by a pianist, Tommy Peoples and guitarist, and a solo set by Cillian Vallely. All three ended the evening by sharing the stage and it was really something to see.
I’d been taking pictures all weekend at the workshops and at the concerts, so there will be lots of images to see at a later date - I’ll keep you all posted.
A huge thank you to all those who organized it so well, it made it a really very enjoyable event, as usual, and even though the weather has been reed cripplingly cold and dry, the Tranzac club always seems to warm the hearts and souls of those who enter. I encourage everybody to go to http://www.chrislangan.com to read more about the life of Chris Langan and how important a mentor and friend he was to those he knew. There’s also a book out there that has an incredible selection of tunes that he wrote. You can find out more about it here: http://www.cranfordpub.com/books/chris_langan_book.htm
Excellent time! Looking forward to those pictures. For those intermediate pipers out there, I documented about 20 different ornaments from the intermediate workshop and will slowly be going through them over the next month. If anyone would like a copy (Excel), let me know.
I, too had a great time at the Tionol. Joe’s reedmaking workshop was great! My decision to purchase one of his sets was cemented by just watching him work.
I learned more about piping in ten minutes just watching people play over the weekend than I could have in a year of practicing by myself.
I think my mini-disc got a real workout and I’m relieved to say that the recording quality is great, so if any of youse whom wuz there want to get a copy of it, give me a while and I’ll send out copies on CD.
It was also great to match faces to the names on this here forum; Paul and Virgil are the first two names that come to mind. I would have loved to have umped a rumble in a parking lot, you two would’ve made an interesting match! (hee hee.)
So many highlights, so little typing space; Marty’s lilting, Harry’s fingers, Cillian’s sublety, Jeremy’s nonchalance… wow, I can’t wait to do it all again.
On 2003-01-20 21:39, vcolby wrote:
Excellent time! Looking forward to those pictures. For those intermediate pipers out there, I documented about 20 different ornaments from the intermediate workshop and will slowly be going through them over the next month. If anyone would like a copy (Excel), let me know.
Cheers,
Virgil
Virgin,
Yes, I would very much appreciate a copy if you could manage it.
I think my mini-disc got a real workout and I’m relieved to say that the recording quality is great, so if any of youse whom wuz there want to get a copy of it, give me a while and I’ll send out copies on CD.
Mark,
I would be very appreciative if I could be a recipient of said CD!
Ssshhhh… while nobody was looking I sneaked through a hole in the flute board.
I just bought the 3 quarter set in B that Joe Kennedy made, the ones he played at the Sunday recital. You can see them in the ‘Day 3’ section of Paul’s photos (and nice they are too) being played by the maker himself. What a lovely, lively little chanter it issniff,sniff …so far away…. Joe’s holding on to them for a while to tweak, polish and prepare them for life on this little isle.
BTW Paul, I’d love a hi res copy of the Joe Kennedy/B set pic for coveting purposes if it is’nt a pain, and the rather flattering one of myself in early morning workshop ecstacy. “B flat!” I said ,but he wouldn’t lie down.
I’d be more than happy to send you all out copies of the stuff I recorded. Give me a week or so to get back on the work/practice/housecleaning/breathing non-polluted air thing and I’ll copy stuff off the minidisc.
I must admit some amazement at Paul’s lightning-fast posting of all those pics. Now I know who’s behind the mysterious uilleann.ca site. At long last, another mystery solved. Congrads, Paul.
There’s about four or five hours of recordings, so I’ll either chop that down to just the music or copy everything to the CDs, which would end up being two or three CDs each. Let me know what you’d like. It might take some time but I’ll be happy to do it.
As I’ve been somewhat isolated here in Winterpeg it was both enlightening an harrowing being there; I learned more in a few hours than I could’ve in months but the Tionol also VERY CLEARLY showed me how far I have to go, especially after some dark looks whist I pummelled the bodhran. Ah, well. No-one likes the drummer. (Sniff, whine.)
And Harry, you can’t sneak through the Uilleann discussion door without the seekrit password. Does it know it, my precious my precious? (There’s a hint for ya.)
Nice meeting you all, and we’ll see you after a year of heavy practicing.
Mark
P.S. The reed I bought from Joe Kennedy plays (already, only two days of playing) well into the third octave! Yippee!
edited to be even longer.
[ This Message was edited by: jqpublick on 2003-01-21 21:14 ]
