The Tulla Trad Festival will kick off this Friday with a parade through the East Clare village by the Chapel Gate Wrenboys.
Dressed in traditional costumes, the wrenboys will lead the torch lit procession at 8pm, which will ensure that music resounds across the village signalling the start of the festival’s programme of events.
The procession concludes at Tulla Courthouse where the group will give a performance following the official opening by musicians and Clare FM presenter, Eoin O’Neill.
According to the organisers,interest for this year’s festival workshops is coming from not alone all the four provinces and across the UK but across Europe.
“A group of musicians are boarding a train south of Paris for Cherbourg then by ferry to Rosslare and on by bus to Ennis especially for Zoe Conway’s workshop. Zoe, who will be amongst the tutors at the workshops, is among the most sought after fiddle tutor worldwide. Her list of achievements belies her youthful age as Zoë has performed across the globe, both as a solo artist and also playing with international acts such as Riverdance, Damien Rice, Rodrigo y Gabriella, Nick Cave and Lou Reed among others,” a spokesperson for the trad festival said.
A winner of the all Ireland senior fiddle competition in 2001 Zoë was voted Best Traditional Female of the Year in Irish Music Magazine and also featured on the current Leaving Certificate music syllabus. She is increasingly in demand as a tutor, regularly giving workshops and lectures on the merits of classical and traditional music on the violin.
The festival committee have advised that some of the workshops are already almost full and pre-booking is advisable. The workshops take place from 11am to 1pm and from 2pm to 3.30pm.
A native of Ennis, Colin McGann has been editor of The Clare Champion since August 2020. Former editor of The Clare People, he is a journalism and communications graduate of Dublin Institute of Technology.