Louth musicians playing at Scottish music festival

A group of musicians from DkIT have been awarded Culture Ireland and Create Louth funding to perform and facilitate workshops at Speyfest this week.

No strangers to the international festival, Adèle Commins and Daithí Kearney have been invited on a number of occasions, previously bringing DkIT students in 2016 and 2018.

This year they are joined by Rhíona McPhelim and Jessica Muldrew, who recently completed the BA (Hons) Music at DkIT, IRC PhD student Leandro Pessina and TUTF PhD student Darren Culliney, who are currently pursuing postgraduate studies at DkIT.

They will collaborate with the Louth-based Sonas Duo, Francesca de Nardi and Davide Forti. Francesca is a violin and piano tutor at DkIT and the duo are directors of the Music Generation Louth orchestras.

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The local musicians will perform and facilitate workshops at Speyfest from July 17th to 21st.

Also performing at Speyfest this year is Sharon Shannon, whom a DkIT group also supported in 2018, as well as Scottish superstars Skerryvore and the inter-Celtic band Ímar, who performed in Louth last year as part of a collaboration with Nós Nua.

In addition to their own performances, the Louth group will facilitate workshops in the days leading up to the festival culminating in a performance by workshop participants at the festival. 

For this year's appearance, the Irish group under the banner A Louth Lilt, will perform music that was especially composed by Commins and Kearney for the production Brigid, Lady of Light, staged at An Táin Arts Centre earlier this year and commissioned by Louth County Council.

They will teach some of this repertoire in the workshops, celebrating the history and heritage of Louth through music, song and dance. 

Speyfest is one of Scotland’s leading traditional and Celtic music festivals with concerts, craft fair, workshops and competitions. See speyfest.com for further information.