...was another brilliant Summer School...personal highlights for me was Ann Heymans concert...oh, my Goddess!!! That Lady seriously ROCKED! I have had the pleasure of hearing Ann in concert a number of times and of course always loved her playing...but her Scoil concert this year was something really special, it was such an intimate environment...and I just got the sense of Ann really letting her hair down and simply enjoying her art....it was awesome....with a fair few off the cuff comments like 'I've never actually performed this one before'....my jaw hit the floor....at times the stuff she was doing was like heavy metal guitar riffing....then it was as if angels wings were beating during a heart lifting lament....I make no apology for waxing lyrical on that count....and of course my praise is to take nothing away from the brilliance of Siobhan, Javier and Paul Dooley....we just got a day by day feast, with in the comfort of your living room intimacy, with the greatest in the world....wow! : )
The staff concerts were for me the golden cherry, but of course the scoil was its usual intense cho-o-bloc of lessons, lectures and lunches to die for...and I have to say that seeing my new harp as made by my brother Davy Patton being used in one of Simon's illuminating lectures as an example of progressive historical harp making in Ireland...well, made me feel rather proud to be the owner...
Also typical of the scoil from its inception was the fantastic students...the most ever at the scoil this year...29 students I think....and I have to say Gwen played a song at the student concert that was worthy of a teachers concert....soooooo beautiful....I was thinking to myself....O my god, another classic Silke ballad I've never heard before....only to discover after Gwen had written it herself....Respect!
Any way, have wrote way more than intended and got far too carried away perhaps...but there you go...the Irish Summer School of Wire Harp...is affirmed as an international beacon for the renaissance of this sacred instrument...I mean there is me travelling down the road from sunny Belfast....to meet students who have travelled from Japan, Poland, USA, Canary Islands....all to learn our national instrument...cool...the whole world needs to hear those sweet bells ringing...
A big thanks and respects to the Historical Harp Society of Ireland for making it happen...
John-Paul
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