Pipers Club relaunches classes and festival

ONE of Armagh’s longest-established cultural organisations is about to commence its 57th year of teaching and promoting traditional music and song.

Armagh Pipers Club, founded in 1966, has gained a world-wide reputation through its production of a range of tutor books, and since 1994 through its promotion of the annual William Kennedy Piping Festival.

The club provides classes on Monday evenings attended by up to 200 children and adults.

Its students are mostly from counties Armagh, Tyrone and Monaghan, with a few travelling from Down, Fermanagh and Louth.

The new term launches on Monday, September 12, with an open night at the Club’s Scotch Street premises, and online registration is already underway at armaghpipers.com.

Weekly lessons commence on September 19 in St Catherine’s College, Armagh, where students can attend one or two hour-long lessons at four levels, from beginner to senior.

About two-thirds of the students are aged from seven to 12, while one-third are teenagers or adults.

The classes are provided by over 20 tutors, many of whom came through the club as students and all of whom are highly skilled teachers and performers.

Tuition is provided for tin whistle, flute, uilleann pipes, banjo, fiddle, concertina, button accordion and traditional singing, as well as an adult session class.

Two of Ireland’s best known instrument makers – Éamonn Curran (uilleann pipes) and Paul Bradley (fiddle) - are on the teaching staff.

Most of the other tutors are semi-professional musicians or music teachers.

The club, which is a registered charity, is led by its founding director, the well-known artist Brian Vallely, and a voluntary board of trustees, including Eithne Vallely as musical director.

The Pipers Club has a non-competitive ethos, although many of its students have done very well in national competitions.

Its success can also be measured by the outstanding record of its students in London College of Music examinations, which can count towards university entrance points.

The club has largely recovered from the impact of the Covid pandemic, first by ensuring that tuition continued online alongside recorded concerts, and then carefully managing a return to face-to-face teaching.

Not just classes

The teaching programme of the club is supplemented by a monthly session where pupils have an opportunity to play together in a relaxed format at the Scotch Street premises, known as Áras na bPíóbairí (‘house of the pipers’).

The Áras also hosts monthly concerts featuring top-level singers and musicians.

These concerts, which started in 1999 as Trad at the Trian, are now called Fonn Fridays and have played host to such legendary figures as Sarah Anne O’Neill, Paddy Tunney and Frank Harte.

Pupils and tutors also take part in events during the William Kennedy Piping Festival, the Club’s Annual Concert, the International Uilleann Piping Day, National Harp Day/Lá na Cruite, Burns Night celebrations, radio and TV programmes, and events promoted by the local council.

The William Kennedy Piping Festival

Since its first appearance in 1994, the William Kennedy Piping Festival has grown into one of the longest-running and most prestigious international events for pipe-based music.

While most piping festivals around the world focus on a particular national or regional instrument, the WKPF, as it is known, always features a wide variety of bagpipes and groups that include pipers.

This November sees the 28th edition of the Festival, which is named after the blind Tandragee piper (1768-1834) who contributed greatly to the development of the modern uilleann pipes.

After Covid-19 forced the cancellation of the 2020 edition, last year saw a cautious return with just 18 musicians performing.

This year there are twice as many, with participants from Scotland, Ireland, the USA, Italy, England and Portugal.

Programme details and booking facilities can be found at wkpf.org.

The festival provides a useful boost to the local tourism and hospitality sector, and the club reports that 90 per cent of this year’s ticket sales to date have been to overseas visitors.

Other national and international festivals

Musicians from the club have taken part in festivals such as Celtic Connections and Piping Live! in Glasgow, the European Pipe Band Championships in Belfast, Ceòlas in South Uist, the European Festival of Young Musicians in Quatro Castella (near Bologna), Traditional Music Festival in Northumberland, the Geordie Hanna Singing Festival in Derrytresk, Fiddler of Oriel in Monaghan, the Edinburgh Fiddle Festival, NAFCO in Derry, Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in Drogheda, and Fiddle Fair in Baltimore.

In mid-August a group of club tutors performed at Glasgow’s Piping Live! festival, playing in such prestigious venues as the Kelvingrove Gallery and the City Chambers.

Armagh was well represented this summer also at Festival Interceltique in Lorient, Europe’s biggest Celtic music festival, with Club ‘graduates’ Brian Finnegan, Niall Vallely and Cillian Vallely featuring on the programme.

A seed-bed of musical talent

Being an independent organisation, the Pipers Club has always had the freedom to plan and develop its own programmes, and has encouraged its students to develop their talents as individual performers and in groups.

It has been able to enhance its high standards of performance by forming interesting and challenging ensembles to play at festivals at home and abroad.

The club has also had the privilege of commissioning new music from established composers.

Over the years, the groups that have emerged from the club have included song groups such as Macha, Sruth na Maoile and Tóg Fonn, other groups such as Cúig, and piping ensembles such as the APC Uilleann Pipe Quartet.

The group Strings Attached involved fiddles, violas, cello, double bass, harp, guitar and keyboard.

A group of younger children, named Na Páistí, performed at Musical Footsteps concerts and toured all the local schools, and several CDs have been produced featuring young members of the Club.

Many former students of the club have gone on to spread their musical wings as performers and composers in multiple genres.

These include Brian Finnegan, Niall, Cillian and Caoimhín Vallely, Dara Vallely, Alana and Jarlath Henderson, Tiarnán Ó Duinnchinn, Fintan Vallely, Niall Murphy, Ríoghnach Connolly, Áine Mallon, Barry Kerr and many more.

Many have studied music at university as undergraduates and at postgraduate level.

Some are teaching music, others are in research, arts management, music therapy, sound engineering as well as full time touring.

Numerous awards

Recognition for Armagh Pipers Club has come in the form of awards spanning many years.

Awards to the club and its founders include the Seán Ó Baoill award, the Irish Music Magazine Award for Best Festival in 2003, the Celtic Fusion Award in Castlewellan in 2008, the Hall of Fame award from the Fiddlers’ Green Festival in Rostrevor, the TG4 Gradam Aitheantais (Musicians Award) in 2012, and in 2018 the Good Tradition award in the BBC Folk Awards.

Individuals nurtured by the club have likewise secured many awards.

Piper Jarlath Henderson was the first Irish musician to win the BBC Folk Awards Young Musician of the Year, and was followed a few years later by the group Ioscaid.

The Arts Council’s Young Musicians platform awards have been presented to Niall Murphy, Niall Hanna, Conor Mallon and Jack Warnock. Brian Finnegan and Ríoghnach Connolly have also won BBC Folk Awards while building their stellar international careers.

Innovative projects

From its earliest days, the club has focused on co-operative musical projects rather than competition, although some students do participate in fleadhanna ceoil and other competitions.

One of the earlier projects in 1999, entitled Maydance, involved a weekend of traditional dances from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Slógadh involved exciting musical experiences throughout Ireland.

There were various piping projects, including the memorable Song of the Chanter – a group of 45 uilleann pipers, in a performance of music arranged by Donal O’Connor.

A collaboration between the club and the Killeen Pipe Band led to Canntaireachd, with performers on highland pipes, uilleann pipes, small pipes, border pipes and percussion alongside canntaireachd - the traditional sung pipe music.

Francesco Walks, a composition by Micheál Ó Suilleabháin involving a chamber orchestra along with traditional fiddlers, piper and accordions, was conducted by the composer during the Kennedy Festival.

The Dirty River was a collaboration between Armagh Old Boys Silver Band and four uilleann pipers.

Musical Footsteps, led by Dr Sally Walmsley, was a research and performance project involving APC students, and funded by the Heritage Lottery.

Children researched the music of their families and communities and followed this with a tour of local schools to present a programme of music and song.

This led to the setting up of a young mixed instrumental group, Na Páistí, and a Song Trail based on music associated with Armagh City.

From this project too, came the idea for a new song book.

This book, By Dobbin’s Flowery Vale, included illustrated transcriptions of songs taught in the Club over many years alongside two CD recordings of all the songs.

Participation in projects such as these has developed pupils’ confidence and broadened their musical horizons.

The city centre headquarters

One of the most significant developments in the Club’s long history came in 2013 with the leasing and development of premises in the city centre, Áras na bPíobairí.

While the club remains a volunteer-led organisation, it has been greatly helped since 2009 by having a single paid staff post.

This has been held successively by Gráinne Crothers, Caitlín Ní Chearruláin and now Ciarán Ó Maoláin.

They have provided the professional support needed to run the complex mix of projects and programmes, to work with funding agencies such as the Arts Council, and to satisfy the legal requirements of managing the organisation as both a charity and a company limited by guarantee.

“The Áras gives us rehearsal and performance space in a great location”, said Eithne Vallely.

“While we have not got much use out of it since the pandemic started, we hope to bring it back to life this year with regular concerts and sessions. It also houses our administrative office, our archives, our publishing operation, our online shop, board meetings, and our small stock of instruments for loan to any student who can’t afford their own.

And on that note - Armagh Pipers Club would be very glad to hear from anyone who has an instrument sitting unused in a corner, especially if it’s one that they borrowed from us and forgot to return!”