Our special guest this year is from a family of piping enthusiasts and has been playing the uilleann pipes for the past 18 years, both as a solo musician and in various groups. From Kilkenny, he was taught predominantly by the great Waterford piper, Tommy Kearney but received many lessons from Joe Doyle, Nollaig MacCárthaigh, Pat Mitchell and Mick O’Brien, amongst others. He has been a regular participant at the Willie Clancy Summer School and the many piping tionóls over the past 25 years. His father organized the annual Tionól Tommy Kearney piping weekend in Kilkenny every November. In 2008, this piper worked at Na Píobairí Uilleann, an experience that fostered his love of uilleann pipe-making, which is a hobby that he enjoys immensely. He has a particular interest in the work of the classic makers from the 1800s such as Coyne, Kenna and Egan.

Brian Miller is a musician, researcher and librarian from Minnesota. He was a longtime guitarist with the band Bua and he performs with The Northern Shores, The Lost Forty, Norah Rendell, Nathan Gourley & Laura Feddersen and David McKindley-Ward. He has taught guitar, bouzouki, flute and tenor banjo at the Center for Irish Music since 2006 and at camps and workshops across North America and in Ireland. Brian directs the Eoin McKiernan Library at Celtic Junction Arts Center and writes the blog Northwoods Songs. He has done years of research into the history of Irish music in the white pine regions of the northern US and Canada and is a past recipient of the Parsons Award from the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress for his work.

Website/blog: www.evergreentrad.com

          Richie Piggott is originally from Cobh, Co. Cork. He has a technical background in Enzymology and
Molecular Biology and is now working in the Food Industry in the US, based in Chicago, for over 20 years. He comes from a very musical family and, although not a musician himself, he has always been interested in Irish traditional music and musicians and has built a large personal library of books and early manuscripts on the subject. Richie has now published his research on Irish music in Chicago from 1920-2020 in a book entitled Cry of a People Gone and also opened an Archive of manuscripts recordings and storytelling on his website richipiggott.com

Born in Boston, Benedict grew up listening to recordings of Irish traditional music sent over by his mother’s family in Dublin. He took up the pipes in his twenties and has listened to and learned from a wide range of the older players, citing as particularly strong influences the stately musical tradition of East Galway and the complex and elegant piping style exemplified by the “gentlemen pipers” Seamus Ennis and Liam O’Flynn. These influences are evident in Benedict’s graceful, lyrical style of playing.

Well known as an insightful and generous teacher, Benedict will be teaching beginning and intermediate piping workshops. He and his wife, harper/button accordionist Hilari Farrington. Benedict and Hilari live in East Montpelier, Vermont where Benedict, in association with David Quinn, makes and restores uilleann pipes and continues to enhance his reputation as a superb reed maker.

          Hailing from sunny Tallahassee, Florida, Michael Stribling is an award winning Uilleann Piper and Irish musician. In County Cavan, Ireland he competed and won the title of “All Ireland Champion” on the Uilleann Pipes at the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann. Michael has spent a significant part of his formative years in Ireland and England performing and studying traditional Irish music, he was mentored by the piping great, Jerry O’Sullivan. His style exhibits technical punctuation with a rhythmical drive, and is heavily influenced by the music of Uilleann piping masters, Patsy Touhey and Leo Rowsome. He regularly joins the Internationally touring Irish bands Fullset and Runa. Michael has taught at Tionóls and piping workshops in California, New York, Missouri, Connecticut, and Florida.  In 2014, Michael added the traditional Irish element for renowned country music artist Trace Adkins’ Celtic Christmas tour, performing on Uilleann pipes, flute and whistle.  When he isn’t playing music, Michael competes in Ironman triathlons across the United States.

David M. Quinn began making uilleann pipes in 1975, and worked on his own until 1988. He spent ten years in Taiwan, returning in 1998 to form a pipemaking partnership with Benedict Koehler. He is one of a small
number of makers who have worked in the style of the Taylor brothers (makers of the pipes played by P. J. Touhey) and has written extensively on the techniques and peculiarities of that style of instrument. He is the author of /The Piper’s Despair/, a manual of reed making, and served
for several years as technical editor of the Seattle Pipers’ Club newsletter.
 

He works now in Waterloo, New York, where he lives with his wife Lynne and their seven talented cats.

Nick Whitmer, a retired librarian, has been playing uilleann pipes for nearly forty years.  The history of the instrument and its players has been of continuing interest.  He was fortunate to acquire a classic set by the Taylor brothers in 2013.  Inspired by this, he began compiling information about Irish pipers and pipemakers in North America.  One result of this work is the website Lives of the Pipers (livesofthepipers.com), with short biographies of more than 60 pipers active before 1950, and an inventory of pipemakers active in the United States from the same time period.  His researches have uncovered information long forgotten, debunked a few false claims, and given a sense of the variety and possibilities of lives lived in association with this instrument.

Whitmer made pipes for many years.  He lives in Ithca, New York.

Professor O’Neill studies decision-making in social and political contexts. His work applies game theory to study foreign policy decisions, with a view to preventing war. He is currently studying the governance of international organizations, and examining the role of national prestige as a motive for countries seeking weapons of mass destruction. He is the author of Honor, Symbols, and War (University of Michigan Press, 1999), which won the 2000 Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award for the best book published on government, politics, or international affairs. He is also working on the foundations of game theory, seeking extensions that will allow wider applications in political settings. He is currently preparing a manuscript on longstanding myths about public policy. Recently, he has been a Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. He has taught courses on game theory and negotiation at Stanford’s Political Science department, Yale University, York University in Toronto, Northwestern University’s Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences Department, and in the Psychology Department of Queens University, Kingston.

       Currently based in Boston, Joey divides his attention between performance, teaching, and recording. In addition to performing solo, he performs with his wife, old-style step dancer Jaclyn O'Riley and his fiddle partner Nathan Gourley. While at home, he organizes the meetings of the Boston Pipers Club, teaches privately, and plays in The Greater Boston Area.