Living heritage: learn from Irish and Scottish master musicians

Originally from Mallaig, Allan is very much in the vanguard of the resurgence in the native Gaelic culture of West Lochaber. A multi-instrumentalist, he was a founder member of Blazin’ Fiddles, and toured extensively with them for fifteen years. He is also a former Musician in Residence at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, and is constantly in demand as a performer, teacher, composer and producer. He has appeared as a guest musician on over a hundred different recordings, and his production credits include The Angus Nicolson Trio, Skerryvore and an album by the late, great Iain MacKay. Allan has had a life-long interest in the stories and folklore behind the traditional music of Scotland and Ireland, and spends much of his time researching in this area. He has also been heavily involved as a teacher with the Ceolas Uibhist Buttons and Bows initiative, which works to re-establish the prominence of the fiddle and button box traditions in Uist, since moving there in 2016. Allan currently works on the music courses offered by Lews Castle College UHI, delivered from its Benbecula campus.

Breda is known, and appreciated, for her individual, soulful, unshowy playing, influenced by some of the greatest players of the past. She grew up near Lough Corrib in Co. Galway, attending whistle lessons with Mary Bergin from the age of 7, and began learning the fiddle at school shortly afterwards. She got a new fiddle for her thirteenth birthday, and soon became hooked! Her musical influences come predominantly from older players ranging from  Paddy Fahey, Sarah & Rita Keane, Bobby Casey, Paddy Canny, Joe Ryan, Patrick Kelly to Willie Clancy and Felix Doran, among many others. Breda performed and presented at the 2021 Scoil na gCláirseach–Festival of Early Irish Harp, and gives workshops regularly, both in Ireland and abroad. She also teaches in Galway on an individual basis. Breda released her solo CD, The Hop Down, in July 2006. Dermot McLaughlin wrote that 'A recording like this is a cause for optimism at a time when so many accents and points of difference are being smoothed out of traditional music in studio recordings and elsewhere. This hop down is really a big step up!'

A world-renowned piper, Jimmy has been teaching the advanced uilleann pipes class at the Willie Clancy Summer School since 1977. As a member of the group Scullion he recorded an album and toured Ireland and Europe. Since then Jimmy has released two solo albums and played on many other recordings. Jimmy teaches part-time at South East Technological University and has taught in several third level institutions around Ireland, including UCD and the University of Limerick where he earned his Ph.D. He spent five months at Boston College in 2008 as Fulbright Visiting Professor and made a close study of the Hudson music manuscripts there. On his return to Ireland he joined the board of the Irish Fulbright Alumni Association and served as President of the IFAA from 2015 to 2017. As a performer, Jimmy has played around Ireland, Europe, Japan, as well as Australia and New Zealand, the USA and Canada.

Born in the tiny Gaelic-speaking township of Glenuig in Moidart, Allan is a leading light in the Gaelic musical scene, and is in demand internationally as a composer, musical director, piper, singer, workshop leader, and lecturer on Gaelic music. One of his myriad gifts is to make pibroch accessible and lovable. His work as a scholar-performer reuniting seventeenth-century piping with its Gaelic roots is influencing a whole generation of pipers. Allan has performed at all of the major Celtic and piping festivals. He lectures on the Scottish Music course at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama, and has had numerous commissions to compose for BBC television. In 1999 and 2004, Allan directed two pioneering series for the Edinburgh International Festival. In 2005, he co-directed a six-part television series screened on RTE, BBC3 and ITV—“The Highland Sessions”—addressing the common language and musical traditions of Scotland and Ireland, which won the Best Documentary Music Award in Ireland. His approach to performing is infused with an insider’s ear for the fragile traces of historical continuity that survive within Gaelic-speaking communities, and he attempts to reverse the effects of post-Industrial sanitisation and cultural colonialism.

A native of an sean-phobal (the oldest part) in the Waterford gaeltacht (Irish-speaking area), Ciarán Ó Gealbháin is a musician, singer and lecturer in the Department of Folklore and Ethnology, University College Cork, where his doctoral research focused on aspects of the Déise song tradition. A former member of the very well-known, traditional Irish music group, Danú, he has toured extensively in Europe and North America sharing his special interest in the music and song traditions of his native area. He currently lectures on the Béaloideas and Folklore programmes at UCC, and has co-edited Béascna: UCC Journal of Folklore and Ethnology since 2007, acting as senior editor to the Journal since 2012.

Born in the tiny Gaelic-speaking township of Glenuig in Moidart, Allan is a leading light in the Gaelic musical scene, and is in demand internationally as a composer, musical director, piper, singer, workshop leader, and lecturer on Gaelic music. One of his myriad gifts is to make pibroch accessible and lovable. His work as a scholar-performer reuniting seventeenth-century piping with its Gaelic roots is influencing a whole generation of pipers. Allan has performed at all of the major Celtic and piping festivals. He lectures on the Scottish Music course at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama, and has had numerous commissions to compose for BBC television. In 1999 and 2004, Allan directed two pioneering series for the Edinburgh International Festival. In 2005, he co-directed a six-part television series screened on RTE, BBC3 and ITV—“The Highland Sessions”—addressing the common language and musical traditions of Scotland and Ireland, which won the Best Documentary Music Award in Ireland. His approach to performing is infused with an insider’s ear for the fragile traces of historical continuity that survive within Gaelic-speaking communities, and he attempts to reverse the effects of post-Industrial sanitisation and cultural colonialism.