Damien Dempsey to star in aid of 'Buena Vista Pipers Club' Damien Dempsey, and a number of Ireland’s leading traditional musicians, will stage a one-off concert to help fund the visit of an uilleann piper from Cuban to Ireland. Alexander Suarez Mendez, prompted to learn the instrument after recent visits from Irish uilleann pipers, hopes to attend a number of workshops at Scoil Samhraidh Willie Clancy in Miltown Malbay, the Joe Mooney Summer School and at Na Píobairí Uilleann in Dublin. Currently, there are over a dozen uilleann pipers in Cuba, enabled by the donation of instruments Irish makers and students in Na Píobairí Uilleann’s PipeCraft training centre. Annual workshops in Havana and Pinar Del Rio have now been established, while the more experienced Cuban pipers are now teaching Irish traditional music to Cuban children and have also acquired the intricate skills of reed-making and pipes maintenance in order to establish sustainable clubs in the aforementioned cities. Damien Dempsey, along with Traditional musician of the Year Harry Bradley, leading piper Seán McKeon, fiddler Liam O’Connor and noted singer, Jimmy Kelly, will all perform on the night. The concert will be held in the Grand Social, Liffey St, Dublin on Thursday, 1st May at 8pm. Tickets, €20, can be purchased and printed online at the following link http://cubanpipers.eventbrite.ie Interviews with Alexander in Cuba can be arranged. For further information, contact the following: Gay McKeon 087-2358152 Jimmy O’Brien Moran 087-2465443 E:cubanpipers@gmail.com
Fundraising Concert for Cuban Uilleann Pipers Announced Thursday, 1st May at Grand Social, Liffey Street
