FluteFling Aberdeen Weekend 3-5 November 2023

We are excited to announce the tutors for this year’s FluteFling Weekend in Aberdeen. Tina Jordan Rees, Niall Kenny and Munro Gauld.

Come and be part of the traditional flute and whistle revival in Scotland, with sessions, workshops, talks, performances and more. This is a great opportunity for students to experience different styles and approaches to learning and performing traditional music on flutes and whistles in this much-anticipated event.

Whistlers should be playing whistles or low whistles in D and be beyond the complete beginner stage. Flutes can be simple system in D (keyed or keyless) or Boehm system. There will also be space for Beginner flute players with 1-3 years experience as well as those with more than 3 years experience. These are rough guides only, please get in touch if you are not sure.

See our FAQs on FluteFling events.

Update 21 October

Tutor resources now available for ticket holders. Please check your emails for a password. Contact us if there are any problems

Tina was ‘Composer of the Year’ Nominee MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards 2022 and will be teaching with FluteFling for the first time, where she will have a warm welcome. Niall and Munro are popular musicians and tutors who have both taught at Edinburgh events.

The FluteFling Aberdeen Weekend will take place 3-5 November, with workshops on 4th November at Ruthrieston Community Centre, 532-536 Holburn Street, AB10 7LL

This page will updated as further details are announced.
Last updated Saturday 30 September

Tickets

Advance Tickets: £60/ £40 concessions* (£75/ £45 on the door)
from Brown Paper Tickets
* Unemployed / Benefit Recipient: Applies to those who are unemployed or in receipt of low income benefits, e.g pension credit or universal credit. Please note that this is a flexible rate and you can pay more if you are between the two categories.

Tutors

Tina Jordan Rees

Tina Jordan Rees Photo: Elly Lucas

MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards nominee for ‘Composer of the Year’ 2022, Tina is originally from Lancashire, where her initial enthusiasm for music stemmed from piano lessons given by her father. After joining a local Comhaltas group, Tina took up the tin whistle and began her love affair with Irish dancing. Eventually, this led to her beginning a degree in Irish Music and Dance at the University of Limerick.

In 2009 she moved to Glasgow, initially on a one-year Erasmus student exchange, but chose to stay and complete her degree at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. With this background, she has roots planted firmly in both the Irish and Scottish traditions, and this amalgam does much to define the style of her compositions.

Tina is a mult-instrumentalist playing piano, flute, and whistles, and she is also a qualified Irish dance teacher. As an avid composer, Tina takes her influences from many places, including the Irish dance music tradition, where she is a household name.

In 2023 she performed at Celtic Connections, supporting John Doyle and Mick McAuley at the National Piping Centre. Tina’s tunes feature in Folk Tunes from the Women, published by Faber Music in May 2023.

Tina has 5 CDs in the Irish Dance “Féistastic “ series to her name. and has performed with the Top Floor Taivers. Her debut flute and whistle album “Beatha” (meaning ‘life’ in both Irish Gaelic and Scottish Gaelic) was launched in 2022 and comprises entirely original compositions.

For more information see her website.

Niall Kenny

Niall Kenny at FluteFling (c) John Crawford

Niall Kenny was born in Edinburgh to Irish parents from Sligo and Wicklow. Traditional music was always in the house, especially singing, and annual family holidays to Ireland reinforced this.

There were many influences during these trips: visiting family in Glencolmcille in the 1960s and hearing the Doherty brothers, Johnny and Mickey, with Con Cassidy, and Mickey and Francis Byrne. He also heard Liam O’Flynn, as Liam rented a cottage on a family farm in Kildare in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

As there was no Comhaltas branch in Edinburgh, and no readily available whistle and flute teachers, Niall initially taught himself by listening to old vinyl records and learning a few tunes from his father, Thomas Francis “Frank’ Kenny. Frank Kenny was born in Tubbercurry, Sligo, in 1911 and had heard many of the great early players in that area.

It was during his time at university in Edinburgh that Niall started to play in earnest, attending the Edinburgh University Folk Song Society (as it was then), various sessions in the city, and playing in a variety of bands, including Miro. The EUFFS was one of the oldest and best-established folk clubs in the UK, and was a magnet for many musicians in the city. This led to interests in Scottish music, and contacts with many Scottish singers and musicians, which blended well with his early Northern Irish music exposure.

Niall Kenny at FluteFling Edinburgh 2018 (c) Gordon Turnbull

This Scottish influence was cemented when Niall spent several years flat-sharing with the noted fiddler John Martin (of Ossian, The Easy Club, and The Tannahill Weavers), in a flat famous for parties and visiting musicians.

Whilst flute players were uncommon in Edinburgh in the early days, Niall met and played with those he could, notably Cathal McConnell and Jimmy Young, both of whom came to influence Niall’s style of playing. Over the subsequent years his style has become a strong blend of Irish and Scottish music, particularly reflecting music of the North of Ireland.

Munro Gauld

Originally from Balquhidder, Munro now lives in Stanley, Perthshire. He started playing the tin whistle, learning from the records of Ossian, Silly Wizard and the traditional playing of Alex Green, before taking up the flute in the early 1990s while living in Edinburgh.

He has always been drawn to, and mainly played the traditional music of Scotland, seeking solutions to the challenges of playing Scottish music on the flute – particularly strathspeys and pipe marches

with their dotted rhythms, and also learning to play in the non-standard keys found in a lot of Scottish fiddle music.

Lately Munro has become involved in exploring the music of place – uncovering the musical heritage of specific places as a means of gaining a greater understanding of their historical and cultural significance. Given ever-increasing globalisation, there would appear to be a corresponding need for people to connect to their own local place at a deeper level.

Traditional music has a unique role in helping people access that connection through the enormously rich musical heritage of our fiddle, piping, clàrsach and Scots & Gaelic song traditions. Flute has historically been an integral part of that Scottish musical tradition, and over the last 30 years Munro has thoroughly enjoyed being part of the nascent Scottish flute revival.

Musical influences have been the flute playing of Chris Norman, Calum Stewart and Laurence Nugent, the fiddling of Charlie McKerron and Caoimhin O Raghallaigh, the box playing of Martin O’Connor and a whole host of Gaelic singers.

Munro has been involved in projects researching the forgotten music of the Highlands. The fruits of some of his research can be seen on The Gathering website.

Teaching resources

Teaching resources provided by the tutors in advance are provided to ticket holders. The link is password-protected, with password mailed out to everyone. Please follow this link. In case of any issues, please contact Gordon.

Programme & venues

For maps and public transport information to venues, see this PDF: AFF 2023 INFORMATION PACK v3 (5MB)

Programme	Venue
Friday 03 November Session: 1930 – 0100hrs	Blue Lamp 121 Gallowgate, Aberdeen AB25 1BU
Saturday 04 November Tuition 0930-1000: Registration 1000-1115: Workshop 1 1115-1145: Break (30 mins) 1145-1300: Workshop 2 1300-1400: Lunch (60 mins) 1400-1515: Workshop 3 1515-1545: Break (30 mins) 1545-1700: Talk with Munro Gauld 1700: End	Ruthrieston Community Centre 532-536 Holburn Street, Aberdeen, Ab10 7NJ
Saturday 04 Session: 1930 – 2300hrs	Cults Bowling Club 293 North Deeside Rd, Cults, Aberdeen AB15 9PA
Sunday 05 November Session: 1300 – 1600hrs	Blue Lamp 121 Gallowgate, Aberdeen AB25 1BU

Workshops

The workshops format is 3 groups of up to 12 students will rotate between all of the 3 tutors. Where possible, groups will be comprised of similar abilities and instruments, but this is dependent upon numbers and cannot be guaranteed. There will be breaks between workshops and for lunch, with light refreshments provided. The day will end with a talk focused on Munro Gauld’s research on the music of the Highlands.

Sessions

FluteFling sessions are friendly and informal affairs, with experienced musicians there to keep the music going and support whoever wants to start a tune. We haven’t had the need to put together session etiquette guidance, but this page by fiddler Ros Gasson has sensible advice. If in doubt, ask.

For repertoire, there isn’t a set list as such. However, tunes from The FluteFling Collection are likely to be played. Additionally, John Crawford put together a North East tunes PDF that Gordon Turnbull has recorded as a project. Find out more about this and download the PDF here.

Safety

To be updated soon. In the meantime, please refer to FluteFling’s previous health and safety guidance.

Venues and public transport

Download a PDF containing much of the information on this web page and transport directions to venues. AFF 2023 INFORMATION PACK v3 (5MB)

The Sunday session at Ma Cameron’s, Aberdeen FluteFling 2019