The Northumbrian Smallpipes weekend offers a enjoyable opportunity to develop technique and repertoire with a variety of workshops, sessions, plus a performance from the tutors.
Once again, you’ll be able to make a long weekend of it and book an additional night of B&B on Sunday night for just £60 per person (includes supper).
Who is it for?
This popular workshop weekend is designed to give everyone from beginners and improvers to intermediate and advanced level players a thoroughly enjoyable opportunity to develop their abilities, technique and repertoire.
You’ll work in groups according to ability level, with some optional sessions too, allowing you the opportunity to work with all tutors over the course of the weekend. Some music will be available in advance, for workshops that require it.
The Team
Andy May was introduced to the smallpipes by his father Stan, later learning from Roland Lofthouse and Adrian Schofield, and from studying the recordings of Billy Pigg and Tom Clough. Through the 90s Andy entered many piping competitions and studied music at the University of York with the pipes as his chosen instrument. Andy has been a full-time musician since 2002, with the Andy May Trio, UK/Finnish/Danish ensemble Baltic Crossing, and with North-East band Jez Lowe and the Bad Pennies. Andy is a notable pipemaker, learning much from his father, and also Colin Ross, and teaches on the folk music degree course at Newcastle University.
Chris Ormston was given his first set of pipes on his 15th birthday and nine months later won the Northumbrian Pipers’ Society Junior Class. Within three years he had won every Open competition in the county. Early in his piping career he acquired a taste for the classic repertoire of the pipes, with a particular interest in the music of the Clough family. Chris has collaborated with the NPS Society in the publication of two collections: ‘The Clough Family of Newsham’ (2000) and ‘The Clough Family Tunebook’ (2012). In 2011 Chris was honoured to take possession of ‘Young’ Tom Clough’s pipes, a Reid set gifted to Tom by his grandfather.
Chris Evans was born and raised in Dorset. He won a music scholarship to Bryanston School, Blandford, and is a graduate of the University of Bristol with a Bachelor of Arts Joint Honours degree in German and Russian, and a Master of Arts in Medieval Studies, specialising in Late Medieval German. Chris started playing Northumbrian Smallpipes in 2001. He has won Open Classes at the Bellingham Show and the Northumbrian Pipers’ Society annual competitions and has gone on to perform as a soloist for HRH Duke of Edinburgh on Horse Guards Parade, and with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He is in demand as a tutor throughout the UK and US, and has been a regular tutor at Halsway since 2006.
Iain Gelston took up his father’s smallpipes at the age of 21 in 1988 and, under the guidance of Adrian Schofield, won his first piping competition the following year. In 2011, Iain took up the border pipes and went on, entirely self taught, to win every Open competition in Northumberland and Scotland over the next few years. He now plays smallpipes and border pipes regularly, both solo and in the trio The Grand Assembly alongside flautist Trish Winter and fiddler Rachael Hales, concentrating primarily on the 18th and early 19th century piping repertoire of northern England and Scotland. Iain has published two volumes of his own compositions and features playing pipes and bouzouki on the LP “Drive Away Dull Care” by Tyneside folk band Lowp.