Doreen O'Connor of Achill International Harp Festival writes for Culture about their 2020 virtual festival, taking place from October 23-25th.
The Achill International Harp Festival 2020 continues to bring people from different nations together through a shared love of music. The online format of the festival this year means that all ages, all nationalities can join us. This year we will be reaching out, especially to those all over the world feeling cut off as a result of months of isolating.
After enormous upheaval Achill International Harp Festival 2020 will be streamed to audiences all over the world thanks to the brave decision to go online. On a Zoom meeting one evening in early September, it was decided that the festival would go entirely online. It'll be grand, they said …! Instead of bringing international artists to Achill, top Irish performers are taking centre stage and being streamed to the world.
Crowd pulling performers like Steve Cooney and Dermot Byrne, Anne-Marie O’Farrell and Cormac de Barra, Ursula Burns, Richard Allen, as well as countless Mayo musicians were soon confirmed. Yet, an online festival was only going to be realised after a marathon of filming, editing and production. Through Covid restrictions, local and national lockdowns, testing, tracing and isolating we succeeded in filming 10 acts from all over Ireland, nine harp tuition workshops, two lectures, one documentary film on our harp-making workshop, one walk through the breathtaking Achill landscape and one extraordinary bi-lingual children’s storytelling event.
24 incredible, never-before-seen events will make up our Achill International Festival programme 2020.
We are indebted to our wonderful artists and supporters who gave so generously of their time and talent. They tolerated major shifts in arrangements and performance requirements, yet were endlessly accommodating and professional. The artists of this country have contributed enormously to the morale of the Irish people during the last 7 months of turmoil and uncertainty.
This year’s festival was a way to celebrate our wonderful homegrown talent. By providing an online platform for performances, we hope to highlight and pay tribute to the Irish arts industry.
Tune in this weekend, to see old friends and to meet new ones. We will be looking forward to hearing your comments and feedback on all our social media platforms.
Find out more about this year's Achill International Harp Festival here.
