Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Competition Results

The Columbus Feis has come and gone and the Conners family fared pretty well in our competitions.

The Feis runs concurrently with the Dublin Irish Festival, and it's held at Dublin Coffman High School.

The girls each were entered in 2 dances - a Jig and a Reel, First Feis.

Samantha won a gold medal in the Jig and a Bronze in the Reel.

Erin won a gold medal in the Jig and the Reel.

The actual dancing was on separate stages and I wasn't able to watch Samantha's competition, but I did for Erin. She was a little nervous but her teacher, Katie Regan, spent a couple minutes with her just before the Jig. Katie had a lot of students dancing that day and for her to do that was great.

For my competition I played a different air than I intended to - changed it earlier in the week. I played "Dark Woman of the Glen", and the jig was the same "Trip to Athlone".

I nailed the air, and did OK on the jig.

The girls got their results back reasonably quickly - about 20 minutes or so. My music competition results were available at 5pm, so we went to the Dublin Irish Festival for the afternoon.

The girls liked seeing the Celtic Canines (they like animals a lot), did some crafts. Our youngest, Emma, made a red sash with shamrocks and sparkly glue and sequins that she was very proud of. Sashes are a very Irish thing to wear - denoting a title or position.

We took in a fair bit of the Kells set (they are very good musicians, great folks) and then the girls wanted to see the historical recreation display - "Brian Boru's Ireland". They really enjoyed it.

5pm came quickly, and when the results came in, I won the Miscellaneous Irish Musical Instruments competition - a gold medal.

Total medal count for the Conners family: 4 Gold, 1 Bronze.

2 comments:

Susan said...

Congratulations to the Conner Family! On your "About" ditty, the fact you play the tin whistle and uilleann pipes caught my attention.
Are you from Ireland originally?
The Lord willing we hope to get there this Spring when we return to Scotland. :-)
Blessings to you in Jesus, enjoy making music for His glory!

Susan

mconners said...

Thank you, Susan.

It's pretty common for pipers to play the tinwhistle. Fingering on the pipes is very close to that of the whistle so often times pipers will get their start playing the tin whistle.

Tin whistles are lighter, don't need to strap on bellows and then there's the whole reed thing...

Not from Ireland originally. That's a few generations back.

Sounds like a great trip - Scotland and Ireland. Take some photos and post them to your blog.

Thanks again!