Tutor, concert artist
James is an award-winning singer, and harpist, from the USA, who researches and performs early Gaelic song and harp repertoires. A fluent Scottish-Gaelic speaker, James has studied early Gaelic song with noted Scottish singers, Kenna Campbell and Mary Ann Kennedy, among others. As a tenor, James has degrees in voice performance from the University of Southern California and Boston University, his professional vocal experience ranging from medieval liturgical drama to French baroque haute-contre repertoire, bel canto opera and more. James is a professional performer on the early Gaelic harp; his teachers include Ann Heymann, Siobhán Armstrong, Bill Taylor and Javier Sáinz. He has served on the music faculties of Amherst College, Smith College, MIT, the University of Connecticut, and Longy School of Music. He has taught at Vassar College since 2009, also teaching both voice and harp privately. His solo CD, The Gaels' Honour: Early Music for Harp and Voice from Gaelic Scotland and Ireland, was released in December 2018.
FESTIVAL EVENTS:
Concerts
Players' Sessions
Tutor, workshop leader
Alessia graduated in classical harp at the Arrigo Pedrollo Conservatory of Vicenza, in Music Therapy at the G. Ferrari school of specialization in Padua and in Celtic Harp at the Agostino Steffani Conservatory of Castelfranco Veneto. She has also studied Humanistic Music Therapy at the Italian Federation of Music Therapists. Alessia has been teaching classical and Celtic harp since 2006 in private institutes and state schools. She directed a private music school and founded an ‘Atelier of the body and mind’ where she led meetings and music therapy projects aimed at children. In recent years Alessia has also specialized in the historical Gaelic harps of Ireland and Scotland, and the 18th-century Irish harp repertory preserved in the manuscripts of Edward Bunting. She plays a copy of the 'Downhill' harp, an early 18th-century Irish instrument.
FESTIVAL EVENTS:
Players' Sessions
Workshops
Speaker, workshop leader, concert artist
Doimnic Mac Giolla Bhríde is a singer, composer, choir director, educator, and researcher of sean-nós singing, and an accomplished multi-instrumentalist (uillean pipes, accordion, piano and harmonium). A native Irish speaker from the Donegal gaeltacht, he has performed at festivals and venues across Ireland and the UK, and internationally, including nine tours of the USA, representing Ireland at the European Capital of Culture in the Netherlands (2018). Doimnic won the prestigious Corn Uí Riada competition in 2009, and has released five CDs including Sona do Cheird, melodic compositions to ancient Gaelic poetry (NÓS Album of The Year, 2016). Dedicated to developing Gaelic language and song he has also produced two children’s songbooks: Ící Pící (2010) and Polcaphonc (2019), part-funded by the Arts Council, and endorsed by Department of the Gaeltacht for children’s language learning. Doimnic has a BMus Honours (First Class), from DIT, an MA from UL, and is a sought-after educator: he has given masterclasses at universities in the USA, the UK and Ireland, teaches at summer schools in Ireland, and also weekly in Donegal, Belfast, Tyrone and Tokyo!
FESTIVAL EVENTS:
Concerts
Tutor, concert artist
Paul Dooley is one of the leading exponents of the Irish harp in its historical form and style. He has studied the construction of medieval Irish harps in Dublin during the early 1980s and has built several harps. He began his performing career on the harp in 1986 and has since appeared on numerous CD recordings and television programmes. His repertoire consists mostly of traditional Irish dance music, which for the most part has been learned from players of other traditional instruments – flute, fiddle, pipes. Paul has also spent the past two decades working on the Robert ap Huw manuscript, the oldest collection of harp music in existence. In the more recent past he has resumed harp making, building a variety of small harps, reproductions of the surviving medieval harps and researching string-making techniques. Paul earned his PhD in musicology at the University of Limerick, researching harp tuning practice in medieval Ireland and Wales.
FESTIVAL EVENTS:
Players' Sessions
Concerts
Concert artist
Soprano Róisín O’Grady has performed in recital and oratorio throughout Ireland and specialises in the performance of early music. Róisín studied Music and Italian at University College, Cork and completed a Postgraduate Diploma in concert singing at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Glasgow. She received a First Class Hons. M.A. in Performance at the Cork School of Music in 2008, and was a soloist with the National Chamber Choir of Ireland for over two years. Róisín has performed with early music ensembles, orchestras and choral societies throughout Ireland and the UK including the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Irish Baroque Orchestra, The Irish Consort and early-music duo Tonos. The duo has released two CDs, Songs of Identity and Belonging and Wintersong. She regularly performs with harpsichordist Malcolm Proud. Festival performances include Galway Early Music Festival, East Cork Early Music Festival, Ardee Baroque Festival, Kilkenny Arts Festival, West Cork Chamber Music Festival and Gŵyl Gregynog Festival.
FESTIVAL EVENTS:
Concerts