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
Pipes
Janis Deane
Janis Deane, M.Ed., CCC-SLP is a certified Speech-Language Pathologist and has more than 30 years of experience working with patients who have voice disorders, swallowing disorders, chronic cough and vocal cord dysfunction, and those requiring voice restoration following total laryngectomy. Janis is a classically trained singer, but also an avid instrumentalist. She has played Irish … [Read more...] about Janis Deane
Kara Doyle
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
Seán Gavin
Uilleann piper and flute player, Seán Gavin, is one of the most highly regarded Irish musicians of his generation. In 2016 he became the first and only musician born outside Ireland to win the prestigious Seán Ó Riadagold medal, and his most recent recording, a collaboration with fiddler Jesse Smith, accompanist John Blake, and bodhran player Johnny “Ringo” McDonagh, was hailed … [Read more...] about Seán Gavin
Patrick Hutchinson
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
John Liestman has been playing Irish traditional music on the tenor banjo, mandolin, and uilleann pipes for over 30 years. He taught mandolin in 2011, 2012 and 2015 at the prestigious O’Flaherty Irish Music Retreat, at the 2015 St Louis Tionol, and is an instructor with the Houston School of Irish Music. Over the years he has been a member of Terry and the Pirates, Claddagh (featuring Olcan … [Read more...] about John Liestman
Brian McNamara
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
Dirk Mewes
Dirk Mewes works full time making uilleann pipes from his home workshop in Berthoud, Colorado. Dirk learned to make reeds by visiting and studying with different uilleann pipe makers around the world, including Cillian O’Briain, David Quinn, Tim Britton, and Benedict Koehler. Between playing the pipes in Colorado, and travelling all over, he now specializes in making … [Read more...] about Dirk Mewes
Jerry O’Sullivan
Jerry O'Sullivan has been widely hailed as America's premier uilleann piper. His reputation for technical and melodic mastery of the instrument is unsurpassed in the United States, and is demanding considerable attention overseas. Jerry is also widely recorded on the tin whistle, the low whistle, the highland pipes and the Scottish smallpipes. Born in New York City to an … [Read more...] about Jerry O’Sullivan
Cillian Vallely
Cillian Vallely, a native of Co. Armagh, is the product of an important traditional Irish music family. His parents Brian and Eithne Vallely founded the legendary Armagh Pipers’ Club, an organization that has fostered the revival of traditional music in the north of Ireland for over fifty years, and there, Vallely grew up surrounded by music. Taught by his father and local piper Mark Donnelly, he … [Read more...] about Cillian Vallely