- We deliver the first ever national tuition programme for children, adults and retired people, now operating in Armagh, Dublin, Galway, Kilkenny and Waterford on a weekly, fortnightly and monthly basis. Lessons are individual and are usually of sixty minutes duration.
- We also offer an international tuition programme by Skype (and similar) for adults and teenagers [currently USA, Brazil, Italy, UK, Japan].
- Our students have affordable access to the first ever rental bank of early Irish harps: seventeen instruments in total (nine HHSI harp models based on medieval toeighteenth-century harps in museum and private collections). Instrument cost: just €35 p.c.m.
- HHSI one-to-one artist support time is now a key, integral part of our remit to foster the rediscovery of the early Irish harp: mentoring artists and inspiring them through dissemination of the latest expert knowledge in the field and also helping them to network with diverse experts in this – and related – fields.
- The HHSI’s Scoil na gCláirseach–Festival of Early Irish Harp is Ireland’s international annual festival for the instrument with interactive presentations, workshops, talks, intensive daily tuition and walk-in Beginners’ Taster events.
- Our summer festival concerts feature performances of rare and evocative historical Irish music given by Irish and international historical harpists, singers and pipers, and offer a showcase for emerging performers. Programmes range from Gaelic plainchant in Latin to eighteenth-century Irish and Gaelic Scottish music.
- The HHSI has over six hundred items in the first ever members’ library of books, periodicals, CDs and ephemera, devoted to early Irish harp and related subjects (Irish history and culture; 17th-21st century scholarly material; parallel European source material; sound recordings and ephemera).
- We offer nationally-accessible early Irish harp Discovery Days with LISTEN – LEARN – HAVE A GO! events in collaboration with other organisations, festivals and institutions e.g. Trinity College Dublin, Galway Early Music Festival, and The National Museum of Ireland.
- We run an on-line shop for harps, accessories and CDs.
OUTCOMES
Some of those we have coached and mentored over the years are now professional artists, harp tutors, harp builders and/or have achieved MAs and PhDs in the field from e.g. Ireland, Northern Ireland, The Canary Islands, Poland and the USA.
Some of our international participants now bring their own students to Ireland to take part in Scoil na gCláirseach—Festival of Early Irish Harp each summer so our work is now giving rise to an international second generation of performers.
ARTS PRACTICE
We have a commitment to high-quality, collaborative arts practice. We have excellent links to – and have collaborated on programming with – many other music organisations, third-level institutions, churches and cultural centres – both north and south – in Ireland to provide concert events but also Illustrated Talks and Beginners’ workshop events for amateur and non-musicians to try out the early Irish harp. These organisations include: The Office of Public Works; Trinity College Dublin; NUI Galway; Na Píobairi Uilleann, Dublin; Music Network; Galway Early Music Festival; Seamus Ennis Centre, Co. Dublin; The Remembering Bunting Festival, Belfast; Cairde na Cruite, churches and cultural centres.
