O'Flaherty Irish Music Retreat

Teaching Traditional Irish Music

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Pipes

Joey Abarta

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Joey Abarta has spent the last 16 years touring North America, Europe, and Asia, teaching and performing music on the uilleann pipes.  A Los Angeles native, he first received instruction on the pipes from Dubliner Pat D’Arcy, a founding member of the Southern California Uilleann Pipers Club. His musical skills have been further honed by several visits to Ireland, a year-long stint working … [Read more...] about Joey Abarta

Colm Broderick

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Colm is an award winning piper from Carlow in Ireland. He began playing the whistle at an early age and progressed onto the uilleann pipes, learning from many of Ireland’s foremost pipers.  He was selected by Na Píobairi Uilleann as the inheritor of Liam O’Flynn’s pipes, on Liam's death in 2018. He is tasked with playing and taking care of this instrument, while carrying on the legacy of its … [Read more...] about Colm Broderick

Janis Deane

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Janis Deane, M.Ed., CCC-SLP is a certified Speech-Language Pathologist and has 40 years of experience working with patients who have voice disorders, swallowing disorders, chronic cough and vocal cord dysfunction. She specialized in working with singers and those requiring voice restoration following total laryngectomy. Janis is a classically trained singer, but also an avid instrumentalist. … [Read more...] about Janis Deane

Kara Doyle

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Kara Doyle lives in Schenectady, NY, teaches English at Union College, and plays traditional Irish music on uilleann pipes and whistle. Kara was born in Wisconsin, and spent her youth in California. Moving to the Northeast for graduate school brought her into regular contact with traditional Irish music, and she began to play whistle in 1995. She contracted a severe case of uilleann piping fever … [Read more...] about Kara Doyle

Mickey Dunne

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Mickey Dunne is a member of the Dunne Family, one of the great musical families of Ireland with a heritage stretching back many generations. They have entertained hundreds of thousands of Irish people at Fleadh Ceoils, Munster Finals, Galway Races, Fairs, etc., spanning a half century. The Dunnes played a major part in keeping alive Ireland's musical legacy, and all of them were master players … [Read more...] about Mickey Dunne

Michael Eskin

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For the past 25-plus years, Michael Eskin has been playing traditional Irish music on a variety of instruments, including Uilleann pipes, tin whistle, wooden flute, Anglo concertina, and B/C-tuned button accordion. Since January 2000, he has co-hosted the weekly Tuesday night Irish session at The Ould Sod in San Diego, California, as well as being in the hosting rotation for the Sunday … [Read more...] about Michael Eskin

Seán Gavin

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 A master of the uilleann pipes, Irish flute, and tin whistle, Seán Gavin is a leading performer and teacher of traditional Irish music. He is known both for his recordings, including The Boys of 25, Music From the Lost Continent, and Home Away from Home, and for his work with Bua, Téada, and Séamus Begley. He leads the active touring concert series Shore to Shore, which has featured James … [Read more...] about Seán Gavin

Patrick Hutchinson

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Patrick Hutchinson is an internationally recognized performer and teacher of the Irish Uilleann pipes, with more than thirty years exerience and an eclectic repertoire that encompasses both the traditional and the experimental. Patrick has appeared on WGBH's A Celtic Sojourn, with the Cambridge Revels, and on recordings by Loreena McKennitt and Oliver Schroer, among others. He has provided the … [Read more...] about Patrick Hutchinson

John Liestman

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John Liestman has been playing Irish traditional music on the tenor banjo, mandolin, and uilleann pipes since the late 1970’s. John has taught the Fundamentals Mandolin / Tenor banjo at O’Flaherty five times, in addition to numerous shorter presentations on ABC Notation and running the Retreat Tunes Played Slowly program. John has also been a tenor banjo instructor at the St Louis Tionol and other … [Read more...] about John Liestman

Brian McNamara

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Brian McNamara hails from County Leitrim, a musically rich rural region of Ireland which has produced notable musicians past and present and which has been prominently associated with the preservation and performance of Irish Traditional Music. Introduced to the uilleann pipes in 1979, Brian has become renowned nationally and internationally for his unique musical style and repertoire. As a winner … [Read more...] about Brian McNamara

Testimonials

Former Student

Of all the wonderful aspects of the retreat, though, I think the most wonderful and the most memorable was seeing the effect it had on my son. Andrew really got into the music and into playing in a way that I have never seen in him. When we got home, he and I told the rest of the family about our experiences and then went right out into the front yard and started playing music. No amount of money can buy that kind of experience and your retreat, to a large extent, helped make that happen.

Read all our testimonials…