Join us for another e-Ceilidh nan Og broadcast on Friday 19th June at 10am.

The programme, which will be hosted by piping teacher Ashley Macdonald and is part of the “Deanamaid Dihaoine – Let’s do it Friday” series of events,  will feature more of our primary pupils from across the islands singing, dancing, reciting and playing.

The broadcast will also include sing-along & play-along sessions led by some of our instrumental music teaching staff. Links to downloadable resources (lyrics, sheets music & backing tracks can be found in the e-Ceilidh nan Og section of this blog or on the Eilean Siar e-Ceilidh website

The broadcast will be shown on the website as well as on the Eilean Siar e-Ceilidh Facebook page

The programme for this broadcast showing the performers can be found here

There will be another 3 e-Ceilidh nan Og events after the schools summer break so look out for details of them coming at a later date.

For the first time in its history, The Lewis and Harris Piping Society will run their first ever virtual piping competition – with entries welcomed from the Butt of Lewis to Barra. The competition is open to all competitors under the age of 18. There is a varied selection of categories to encourage every level of player to take part.

For full details please visit the link below

https://www.lhpsoc.com/competition

On doorsteps, in gardens and even from atop mountainous peaks our young CnES instrumental music pupils  have been busy playing tributes to our key workers.  In the case of pipers this has been part of a national campaign called #pipeupforkeyworkers. The performances, which have been taking place every Thursday since before the April holidays, are now eagerly awaited by a growing audience of family, friends and neighbours’ who listen live or online.   The pupils, all of whom have been learning online during the lockdown, have learnt a whole host of repertoire ranging from Hector the Hero to popular songs such as What a Wonderful World.

CnES would like to pay our own tribute, by giving a big round of applause, to our intrepid and dedicated army of musicians.

The videos below show Cameron Hendry who is a P6 pupils at Sgoil nan Loch and Emily Davidson from the Nicolson Institute.

We had originally planned to broadcast this primary schools event, which is part of the Deanamaid Dihaoine series of events, via the Eilean Siar e-Ceilidh website, however the site is experiencing a problem at the moment.

The event will now be broadcast via Vimeo and also on the Eilean Siar e-Ceilidh Facebook page.

Please find below the 4 links to view the event on Vimeo.

Each broadcast is scheduled to go live at the time stated below and you will be unable to view them on either Vimeo or Facebook until that time.

10am – Part 1

https://vimeo.com/423680742

11am – Sing-along

https://vimeo.com/423797240

1pm – Part 2

https://vimeo.com/423689937

2pm – Play-along

https://vimeo.com/423803967

On Facebook please search for the page @ESeCeilidh or use this link

https://www.facebook.com/ESeCeilidh/

Downloadable resources for the sing-along & play-along sessions can be found here

All the broadcasts will be available in the archive section of the e-Ceilidh website once it is back up and running again

www.eileansiareceilidh.com

Two bands 523 miles apart, never met and still managed to make music together

The Musical Directors’ of The Lewis and Harris Youth Concert Band-Gavin Woods and Eccleshall Band-Martin Jones met through a mutual contact, Gavin’s mum.

During conversations about the challenges of making music during the lockdown Martin suggested that members of the two bands might collaborate on a joint project to make a video.

So began a wonderful musical adventure which saw individual members of the bands’ record their parts in the comfort of their own homes.  The resultant videos’ were then stitched together by video and sound engineer Dominic Gwynne.

The music chosen for this piece of musical fun was Camptown Races,  and just as at Ascot, participants wore hats.

The official launch party took place on Saturday  23rd of May on Zoom where an audience of a 100 or so guests, including Director of Education and Children’s Services-Bernard Chisholm,  were entertained by host Martin Jones before viewing the premiere of the video.

Well done to all of the band who took part in the project which has provided an excellent focus for the musicians during the lockdown period.

Well done to Lewis & Harris Youth Concert Band members Elizabeth Greenstock, Tom Blunt, Emily Davidson, Ben Jones, Francesca Greenstock, Penny Fish, Henry Greenstock, Simeon Fletcher, Jane Finlayson and musical director Gavin Woods.

Our instrumental music staff have recently been working with pupils on various projects which have provided a fantastic focus for the pupils learning.

We make music for the NHS

The Music Education Partnership Group (MEPG) organised a project to bring musicians from all across the 32 Local authorities in Scotland together to “make music for the NHS”,  to thank them for their work and dedication.

Pupils from our music service took part in this project, more details of which can be found here

The chosen piece of music for pupils to work on and perform was Somewhere Over the Rainbow and a selection of the performances from our brass and strings pupils can be seen below

Our pipers have also been out in force every Thursday evening to #pipeupforkeyworkers and their videos can be seen on the Lewis & Harris Youth Pipe Band Facebook page 

VE Day – 75th anniversary commemorations

Several of our young musicians took part in various events and personal tributes to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe day during World War 2.

Elizabeth Greenstock, who is a flautist in S1 pupil at the Nicolson Institute in Stornoway is also a member of the local army cadets. Here she is performing Amazing Grace.

The pipers were also involved in the commemorations and were individually tasked to learn & perform “When the battle is o’er”.  The video below is of Aaron & Aoife Ingram from Lewis performing this moving piece.

Pictured are  Sir E Scott School pipers Seamus Mackay (P7) and Hamish Scott (S5) who took part in a tribute alongside Hamish’s grandfather, John Murdo Morrison, at the war memorial in Tarbert, Isle of Harris.

We look forward to welcoming our pupils back for the final term of session 2019/20.

This will undoubtedly have a much different feel to previous terms, as with the lockdown currently in place all our teaching will be taking place online. Our Instrumental Music Teachers (IMTs) were working hard in the final week before the Easter break to set up and familiarise themselves with the systems that we will be using to deliver our tuition and connect with pupils. This is a completely new concept for many of our staff and pupils but we are looking forward to working through and adapting to the challenges that this style of teaching may throw at us.

Using Microsoft Teams, which is available through Glow, IMTs have set up individual teams for their pupils in each school and we hope that by now most of our pupils will have managed to connect with their teacher via this method.

Lessons will be delivered via the v-Scene platform, which e-Sgoil have been using successfully for a few years.

Please see the guides in the Online Lessons tab in the menu for help with getting things set up and information on both Teams and v-Scene including information regarding the security of both these systems.

Contact details for our IMTs can be found on the individual teacher pages under the Meet the Team tab in the menu, and they can be contacted via email if you are having any problems with getting anything set up.

General enquiries regarding any other aspect of the Instrumental Music Service should be directed to the staff members mentioned on the Contact page.