Well, I'd intended to do a series of posts over Xmas, but now I'm having to wish you all a Happy New Year instead.
Recently, I've been putting a lot of work into our Cruinniú na bhFliúit festival, the more so since we got a nasty surprise just before Xmas in the form of a letter from the Arts Council, informing us that they were cutting our grant to zero, zilch, nada, faic!
However we're pushing on ahead and have launched the festival for this year - details and registration over on the webpage
We weren't the only ones to suffer, and if you're interested there was an interesting article in The Journal of Music about these cuts, which in fact have caused a bit of a stir, as they seem to be targeting festivals which are traditional music based.
One thing we did to try to promote Cruinniú na bhFliúit was to make a short film which shows what we do at the Cruinniú, and hopefully puts across something of the wonderful atmosphere of the event. See it here
I'd appreciate it if readers could pass on the Cruinniú links, as we really need a high level of registrations this year in light of funding cuts.
While we're on the subject of videos, someone sent me a link to the RTE archives of what I think was the very first piece of film ever shot in my workshop.
I think the flute that I was demonstrating and playing was the very first flute I ever made!
Note how I have not aged at all since 1980...as long as I keep my cap on...
Anyway, now that I've broken the ice for 2016, hopefully more flutey posts coming soon.
