Dundalk IT brings Louth musical magic to international festival

A group of musicians from Dundalk Institute of Technology were awarded Culture Ireland and Create Louth funding to perform and facilitate workshops at the recent annual Speyfest Festival held in Scotland.

A star-studded bill rocked the rafters recently at the 27th annual Speyfest music festival in Fochabers, Scotland. And the event saw record crowds of around 4000 flocking to both the main and second stages as about 100 of the top Celtic and traditional Scottish music talents converged on the village.

DkIT were represented at this international festival by Dr Adèle Commins and Dr Daithí Kearney who have participated at this event on a number of occasions, previously bringing DkIT students in 2016 and 2018.

This year they were joined by Rhíona McPhelim and Jessica Muldrew, who recently completed the BA (Hons) Music, IRC PhD student Leandro Pessina and TUTF PhD student Darren Culliney.

They collaborated 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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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 facilitated workshops in the days leading up to the festival which culminated in a performance by workshop participants. 

For this year's appearance, the Louth group under the banner ‘A Louth Lilt’,  performed music that was specially 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.

The group also taught some of this repertoire in the workshops, celebrating the history and heritage of Louth through music, song and dance.