Classical Music in Dingle

It is interesting to note that although Dingle is blessed with so many talented musicians, there are few possibilities to hear classical music here. Recently, we were contacted by our friend Johannes Moora offering to bring a concert to Dingle. The program consisted of Schumann and Mendelssohn songs with piano accompaniment and some short solo pieces for piano.

We found a very suitable venue in Emlagh House that has a beautiful upright piano. Emlaigh, a luxury country house, won the AA Guest Accommodation of the Year 2005.

The singer was soprano Iris Pedroli and was outstanding. She has a beautiful clear voice with a lovely texture. The pianist, Renate Poncette was also first rate. Johannes Moora interspersed the program with interesting extracts of diaries and letters of Robert Schumann.

Here is a copy of the program:

Clck on Program for a clearer image!

Féile na Bealtaine Dingle Peninsula

Aigedlige Fife and Drums

A number of people have visited my blog looking for information on this year’s Féile na Bealtaine. I was waiting for the printed program to appear. However, it is now just a week away and it is still not available so I thought I had better post some information. The following information was taken from this week's Kerryman.

The event will take place this year from April 30 to May 5^th. There is a good website Féile na Bealtaine 2008 showing the wide range of events that will be available.

Festival Highlights

Cathy Davey: Best Irish female winner at the Irish Meteor Awards

Citizen Havel: Irish Film premiere of the movie on the life of Vaclav Havel, former president of Czech Republic

The Mystery of Life on Earth: A lecture by Alex Antar on climate change.

Kila: Irish Folk Music/World Music group

Political Symposium: Does Irish aid help Lesotho? With Irish Ambassador to Lesotho, Mr. Paddy Fay

Aigedlige Clique: Our good friends from the Basel, Switzerland marching band will be back with us again this year.

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Dingle Féile na Bealtaine

French Musicians at O'Flaherty's Pub

We took visitors from Stuttgart out on Wednesday night to the session at Flaherty’s Pub. You never know who is going to show for a session and that is just what makes it so special.

This was a fabulous session with hosts Fergus and Mazz O’Flaherty and visitors from France brought in by our resident French bodhran player, Eric Marini.

There was Alexis Guterrez on violin, Evelyne on bouzouki and the Petat family playing box and concertina. They had no trouble joining in many Irish tunes and there were some lovely contributions of traditional French music. Check out their Dissidanses page on MySpace.

Stuttgart Eurythmeum in Dingle

This week we had a visit from the Stuttgart Eurythmeum with a performance of the Grimm fairytale “The King of the Golden Mountain.” See blog post at Anthroposophy Ireland.

Quiet Town-Lively Music

It is the quietest time of the year in Dingle with very few tourists and many of the locals away in search of the sun. But there was nothing quiet about the session at the Marina Inn in Dingle this evening. It was lead by Con Durham on Uilleann pipes with Tony Small on guitar. In addition there were three fiddles, a penny whistle, a flute and myself, mostly on harmonica but occasionally on concertina or bones.

Con is a regular at Marina and I’ve written about him before. Tony Small, originally from Galway has been playing regularly in Dingle for the last couple of years but this was the first time that I bumped into him. He is a good musician and I enjoyed playing with him. His accompaniment to the uillean pipes was excellent and in addition he sang several interesting ballads with a strong clear voice.





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Christmas Shepherds' Play

The Camphill Community in Dingle put on the Christmas Shepherd’s Play for the second time this year. This is a musical play with 18 songs and I was asked to do the music. I invited some session friends, Gordon and Rose Saunders to play with me. We are used to playing Irish music in the key of “G” or “D.” These songs are mostly in “F” “Bb” and one in “Eb” which was a bit challenging but with a little practice, we got the hang of it.










A.C.Harwood who translated the plays into English gives a background in his preface. The Shepherds’ Play is one of three plays that were found sometime around 1845 by Karl Julius Schroer on the little island of Oberufer on the Danube River near Pressburg in Austria. Schroer was one of Rudolf Steiner’s teachers. Sometime in the sixteenth or early seventeenth century a group of German people moved there from Lake Constance and brought with them the cycle of religious plays which they had received from their ancestors. The peasants of Oberufer had preserved the plays, both the text and the tradition of acting, unaltered down through the generations.

Through Steiner, the plays were brought to the Waldorf Schools and it has become a tradition that the teachers put on the plays at Christmas time as a gift to their students. Camphill follows the same tradition.


Camphill
Dingle

Christmas Swim in Dingle

There is a tradition here for people to take a swim in Dingle Bay on Christmas Day to raise funds for the care of the coast. Usually forty to fifty brave souls show up with an equal number looking on. Here is a short video of this year's event.







Dingle Festivals
Christmas Swim