Meet the Musician welcomes Michelle Mulcahy!

In Galvone's last Meet the Musician session, we were delighted to meet Michelle Mulcahy! She is a very talented harpist and travels around the world performing her music.

Michelle told us lots of interesting things about the harp! The tradition is over 2000 years old, and the oldest harps only had a few strings. The instrument has developed a lot over time though and the harp Michelle plays has 39 strings. We talk a lot in Sing Out about the way music can change our mood. When Michelle played she asked us to close our eyes and see how the music made us feel. There were lots of different reactions - some people felt very sleepy, some people felt happy, others thought of people they loved or of different memories. But everyone felt very relaxed! If you'd like to see what we mean, click here!

Thank you Michelle for bringing your beautiful music to our school!

Meet the Musician welcomes Jean McGlynn!

In Sing Out with Strings, we thought we knew all about the relationship between music and story telling... until we met Jean McGlynn! Last week, Jean came to visit Galvone National School to tell us about her job as a Musical Theatre actor! She has played lots of different roles and worked in London's West End! In this Meet the Musician, Jean showed us how you can use make-up, costumes and wigs to create a brand new character.

In just 20 minutes, she turned from Jean

into McCavity the Cat!!!

Before we knew it, our school assembly hall had turned into a stage show and we were all part of it! AMAZING!! Thanks Jean for one of the most exciting Meet the Musician sessions EVER!

Meet the Musician welcomes Hermitage Green!

It's all go here at Sing Out HQ so we're a wee bit behind in our news! We've had loads of fantastic visitors in the past three weeks! We were very excited to welcome Dan Murphy and Darragh Griffin from the band, Hermitage Green! They came to visit all three Sing Out schools and told us about the many different kinds of music they like to play, from Irish Traditional to Flamenco. We met some new instruments; a slide guitar and a didgeridoo! You can see how Darragh and Dan used both instruments, and hear a bit more about the didgeridoo in this clip!

We were also delighted to meet Dermot Sheedy, who plays bodrán with Hermitage Green at some of their gigs. He told us all about the Irish drum, and gave us one of the most impressive Meet the Musician solos ever! You can check out Dermot's amazing skills here! A BIG THANK YOU to Dan, Darragh and Dermot!

Meet the Musician welcomes Andrew Jordan and Shannon Burns.

It's not often we get two different sets of visitors in one week! We were particularly lucky to have Shannon Burns and Andrew Jordan visit us at Southill Junior school last Monday. Andrew is from Limerick, and Shannon is from New York and together they direct the Redemptorist Centre of Music. We had the chance to see and hear two new instruments up close - the saxophone and the trumpet! They showed us the different ways that both instruments can be played, loud and soft, fast and slow, as soloists and as a duo! Thanks Shannon and Andrew!

Meet the Musician welcomes Conor Ryan and Dave Keary!

We were so excited last week to meet these fantastic musicians! Conor is a singer, a member of the Limerick band 'Leading Armies' and he was recently on The Voice! Dave is a guitarist and runs his own recording studio. http://www.reddoorproductions.ie/ He plays with many different musicians including Van Morrison! We had the chance to ask loads of questions, and heard all about Conor's favourite type of music, Jazz. Here's a little clip of the duo performing 'At Last.' Thanks Conor and Dave! Come back and visit soon!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJ98vIQn9VY&feature=youtu.be

Meet the Musician welcomes Juliet Turner and Steve Macartney

It's an exciting month for Sing Out with Strings! For the next few weeks, it's 'Meet the Musician' time. Every week, different musicians come to our schools to give concerts. We get to see their instruments up close, hear new types of music and ask them loads of questions!

We kicked off this year's 'Meet the Musician' with Kathleen's big sister, Juliet Turner and her friend Steve Macartney who plays in the band, 'Farriers'! Juliet and Steve are both singers and song writers, and they both play guitar. We heard about two different types of music, Folk and Bluegrass. They sang some songs for us, and told us about their lives as musicians! And we sang a few songs for them too! Here's a little clip of one of Juliet's songs, People Have Names.
Juliet liked lots of our songs but her favourites were 'The Sea Tragedy' written by St Mary's Boys 6th class, and the Southill Junior School theme song! A HUGE thank you to Juliet and Steve!

Our Big Day!

WHAT A DAY!!!

We've been practicing so hard for the last few months and yesterday we presented a concert of our very own music, 'Oceans, Adventures and New Worlds.' 290 children from Southill Junior School, St Mary's Boys School and Galvone National School took to the stage to sing and play the violin.

We had an incredible time at the Lime Tree theatre in Mary Immaculate College, Limerick. Thank you so much to everyone who helped to make it possible!

http://www.live95fm.ie/news/news-item/rousing-reception-for-sing-out-with-strings-performers/916a8f50-1688-42e9-ba6b-a99484f17935