Rocky Mountain Tionól Report
Denver, Colorado
June 16-18, 2006
by Emily Donoho
published in Iris na bPíobairí 25, no. 4 (Autumn 2006): 27.
For the first time ever, the Rocky Mountain Uilleann Piper’s Club put together a tionól in the Denver metro area on the weekend of June 16th through 18th. It was organized by Zina Lee, David Magoya, and Dirk Mewes, three of our favorite local musicians. Their efforts brought Eliot Grasso (uilleann pipes), Frank Claudy (flute and whistle), and Roger Landes (bouzouki and banjo) all the way from their respective states to impart their knowledge of Irish Traditional Music to Colorado musicians. Those of us living in the west are far away from the irish music on both coasts of the United States and in Ireland and the UK; so it was a fabulous opportunity for us to learn from great players. It was also an opportunity for them to learn from us and learn that we might be isolated, but there are some excellent irish musicians among us. It was a great tune sharing opportunity. We also enjoyed ourselves at hight energy sessions and late night runs to interstate truck stops after a full night of tunes. After all, not only must you have an educational experience at a tionól, you must have fun. And we certainly did.
A session at a pub called Delaney’s in downtown Denver kicked off the weekend. Eliot, Frank, and Roger and about twenty local musicians shared tunes for about three hours. At which point the live rock’n’roll band in the pub drowned us out and we had to bail out of the session. It gave everyone a chance to meet one another and also gave our three guests the change to hear the local repertoire.
The following two days were workshop days. On Saturday, the workshops were held in a church in Boulder called City on the Hill and on Sunday they were at Zina’s house in Erie. I had three lessons with Eliot--he taught me two new tunes and enough piping technique to keep me busy for the next year. Eliot is an awesome teacher, an inspiration to work hard enough at the pipes to teach at tionóls myself in the future. Of course, the issue most pipers have when they visit Colorado is that it happens to be a desert--the arid climate wreaks havoc on reeds. Eliot good-humouredly tolerated his D set of pipes complaining about the dry Colorado climate and often played his B set, which was behaving itself. Dirk and I appreciate the flat set (we hardly hear them out in Colorado) so we really could not complain.
On Saturday night, Frank, Eliot, and Roger gave us a fabulous concert at the Press Club in Denver. They mostly played in B, that being Eliot’s only functional set of pipes. However, Eliot is also a great flute player and they played a few sets in D and Eb with both Frank and Eliot on flutes. That was also a treat. Nor can we forget the stellar backing of Roger on bouzouki [and banjo], who more or less played on the fly and in a key he had not planned to be playing. All three proved their versatile musicianship, since they had not really had a chance to prepare sets before the concert and played the whole things spontaneously. Nevertheless the music was impressively tight.
Though the tionól was small and low-key, all the participants enjoyed themselves and brought some terrific irish music to Denver and Boulder. Now that we know we can make a modest tionól work in Denver, we hope to expand it and bring in pipers and other musicians from neighboring states, as well as engage the Irish music communities in Grand Junction and Colorado Springs. Keep your eyes on chiffandfipple.com, thesession.org, The Piper’s Review, and other forums for information about upcoming events in Denver.
