Workshops & Open Sessions
Workshop Instructors
Corrina Hewat
Corrina Hewat was brought up in the Black Isle in the Scottish Highlands. Growing up surrounded by music and song, art and stories in an expansive landscape helped to shape her musical narrative. She is a harper, singer and composer amongst other things and has been Principal Scottish Harp Tutor at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland since 2012. She achieved her Honours Music Degree and went on to win Tutor of the Year in 2013 at STMA.
She has worked with musicians such as Karine Polwart, Kathryn Tickell, Bobby McFerrin, Eric Bibb, Peggy Seeger. She has recorded around 50 albums, 13 under her own or band name and composed many large scale commissions for ensemble. Her most recent work is MD/co-producer of the Edinburgh Fringe sell-out show run of Moon Dragon which is a new pre-school children's interactive stage show, with harp music and song, characterful puppets, and a wonderfully colourful story journey.
She is also one of the musicians compiling the 100 Women Composers in Trad tunebook to be released on Faber in the near future. She also directs the Scots Folk 60-strong choir Sangstream. She has been trying to record a new album of music and song although it seems her needs are the last on her list, as is usual with musicians, and it hasn't yet been achieved. Her other focus is The Song of the Oak and the Ivy, a 10-harp, 6 player piece, commissioned jointly by the EIHF and The Clarsach Society, which is to be recorded for posterity in 2022.
Eileen Gannon
Eileen, a St. Louis native, is one of the top Irish harp players in the world. She has won numerous accolades including the highly coveted Senior Harp title at Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann. She has a bachelor’s degree in Music Performance from St. Louis University and a master’s degree in Ethnomusicology from University of Limerick. Eileen launched her debut solo CD, The Glory Days Are Over, to great acclaim in the summer of 2017.
Judy Larkin - Cerified Tea Expert
Larkin Tea Company
Judy Larkin of The Larkin Tea Company will share how the Scottish and Irish were instrumental in developing the vast tea industry in Southern Asia. The program will teach the correct methods of brewing tea and the perfect etiquette in how to drink it. Tea drinking is steeped in ancient superstition. Practically every stage of the tea-making ritual overflows with omens. Ms. Larkin will also light-heartedly enlighten everyone on the different taboos and even touch on tea-leaf reading. Judy Larkin is one of only a handful of people in the world who have earned the title “Certified Tea Specialist” from the Tea Association of the USA. She has been a member of trade delegations to Sri Lanka, India, China and Nepal where it was possible to study tea cultivation in the world’s top producing nations. In fact, she has crossed three oceans and 26 countries on four continents in her continuous quest to learn more about the world of tea.
Not satisfied merely with learning about the cultivation and production of tea, she has studied its history plus the etiquette, superstitions and the customs surrounding the consumption of this beverage worldwide. Known for sharing her vast knowledge with a touch of humor, her “students” have ranged from the elegant clientele of the Boston Park Plaza Hotel to elementary school children and even inmates in the Virginia Prison System. Judy Larkin is a native of Manchester, England. Educated in Europe, she graduated from the Burleigh College in Manchester, England and Alliance Françoise in Paris, France.
Open Sessions
Open sessions are designed for all those attending the games to play music so, grab your whistle, harp, fiddle, guitar, flute or smallpipes and join in the fun! Session times and the organizers will be posted as we approach the games.