Alderik H. Blom studied history and music, as well as Celtic and Germanic philology in Utrecht, Amsterdam, and NUI Galway. From 2002 to 2010 he worked at the University of Cambridge (M.Phil., Ph.D., and postdoc), subsequently at the University of Oxford: first as postdoc and from 2013 as Associate Professor of Celtic. Since 2017 he has been Professor of Celtic in the Department of Comparative Indo-European Philology at the University of Marburg/Philipps-Universität Marburg in Germany. His research focuses on the study of early medieval manuscripts in Latin, Celtic, and Germanic languages (producing, for example, "Glossing the Psalms. The Emergence of the Written Vernaculars in Western Europe from the Seventh to the Twelfth Centuries," De Gruyter, 2017). Other interests of his include the study of Continental Celtic inscriptions and the history of nineteenth-century comparative philology and textual criticism as they developed within the context of romantic nationalism in the Netherlands/Frisia, Germany, Ireland, Britain, Russia, and the Scandinavian countries.
FESTIVAL EVENTS:
Illustrated talks
Lutenist and guitarist Toby Carr is known as a versatile and engaging artist, working with some of the finest musicians in the business. While studying classical guitar at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London, he was introduced to historical plucked instruments, an interest he pursued during a postgraduate degree at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London, graduating in 2016, and welcomed back as a professor in 2021. Now in demand as a soloist, chamber musician and continuo player, his playing has been described as ‘sensuous and vivid’ (The Guardian), ‘eloquent’ (BBC Music Magazine) and ‘mesmerising’ (Opera Today). Toby has performed with most of the principal period instrument ensembles in the UK and beyond, as well as with many symphony orchestras, opera companies and ballet companies. He collaborates with singers such as Nicholas Mulroy, Alexander Chance and Helen Charlston. Notable recordings include Battle Cry with Helen Charlston for Delphian and Drop not, mine eyes with Alexander Chance for Linn. Settled in Greenwich, south-east London with his Irish wife and collaborator, the harpist, Aileen Henry, Toby’s interests outside of music include reading, cooking and travelling, though when not working he generally tries to do as little as possible.
FESTIVAL EVENTS:
Concerts
Tamzin Elliott is a composer and harpist based in Los Angeles. Tamzin’s music stems from their love of immersive, world-building experiences and the process of learning music by rote, often incorporating elements of early European music and living folk music such as polyphony from the Republic of Georgia. As a harpist they specialize in historical performance practice, performing European Renaissance repertoire as well as 17th- to 18th-century Irish and Scottish repertory on the wire-strung cláirseach. The work, reconstructing this repertory from Ireland and Scotland, with the tutelage of harpist and scholar Siobhán Armstrong, has played a major role in the development of Tamzin’s current composition project, Meidelant: an opera on the Maidenhood of Morgan le Fay. Tamzin holds a doctorate in composition from the University of Southern California, studying under Ted Hearne, Don Crockett, and Sean Friar.
FESTIVAL EVENTS:
Concerts
Players' Sessions
Connie Mhary Mhicí Ó Gallchóir is a respected sean-nós singer originally from the Rann na Feirste gaeltacht in county Donegal, in the north west of Ireland. Although he spent a significant part of his life in Leeds, England, he never lost his grip on the Gaelic culture of his homeland. Evidence of this can be seen in the two recordings of collections of songs he has released over the last few years including Ar Imeall a' Chuain. In 2022, his fellow Donegal singer, Doimnic Mac Giolla Bhríde, noticed that Connie Mhary Mhicí had in his repertory at least one harp song by the 18th-century harper, Turlough Carolan; apparently a unique survival in oral tradition of a harp song from the 18th century.
FESTIVAL EVENTS:
Concerts
Other
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.
FESTIVAL EVENTS:
Concerts