Workshops Lessons, and Classes
Fostering Musical Growth Through Passion and Tradition
Private and Group Lessons
Nicolas Brown has been teaching Irish music on the uilleann pipes, flute, and whistle for over fifteen years. Lessons cover fundamental through advanced techniques, catered to the level of the students. Some examples of the topics covered are posture, positioning, and fingering, tone and breath control, phrasing, rhythm, ornamentation, variation, and ultimately learning to develope personal styles. Nicolas currently teaches locally in St. Louis through St. Louis Irish Arts, and privately in person and online. For info and rates please contact Nicolas directly.
Workshops
Nicolas has taught many workshops at tionóil and festivals, for schools, and privately over the years. Workshops are often instrument specific, but he has also developed a few fun workshops on topics such as how to listen to Irish music, regional/stylistic, individual, and general repertoire, and more. For a full list of workshops available please contact Nicolas directly.
Lectures
Nicolas has lectured for Na Píobairí Uilleann, the Ward Irish Music Archives, and at several festivals and tionóil. See below for some examples and for a full list of available lectures contact Nicolas directly.
Early Recorded Irish Music
In this lecture, Irish traditional music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is presented through recordings, biographies, photos and descriptions of musical gatherings. Included will be information on subjects such as the recording technology used, amusing anecdotes, and how Irish music has changed over the last one hundred (and more!) years. The music collected by Captain Francis O’Neill in Chicago, and the musicians he collected it from, is the primary focus of the lecture.
There’s Always Money in The…
Surprisingly, it seems like there have always been uilleann pipers in showbiz, not just on the soundtrack to Battlestar Galactica. This lecture discusses some of the career opportunities for uilleann pipers in the late 1800s, with a special focus on vaudeville and the theater circuit, including a description of the famous play, The Ivy Leaf.
Oscar and Malvina
Or 250 years of Uilleann pipes being used instead of Scottish Highland Pipes – One of the first stage performances of the instrument that became the uilleann pipes was to provide background music for the Ballet Pantomime “Oscar and Malvina”, a play based on the (fake) Scottish mythology from the Ossian cycle of epic poetry. This lecture will cover the music played or playable on the Irish or union pipes, and draw parallels with modern practice in both traditional and commercial music. Braveheart wasn’t the first time Irish pipes were used instead of Scottish pipes!
A Short History of Nearly Everything… about the Uilleann Pipes
The history of the uilleann pipes (which were originally called the unions pipes!) is fascinating, and not entirely clear, but this lecture will give an overview of the development of this strange and unlikely instrument. Recordings, photos, biographies of important pipe makers, and the various things this instrument has been called, will be included. And don’t worry, we’ll get to where they got the name “uilleann”!