This year, their group of players are Piping Live! are:
Michael Coney – flute tutor with Armagh Pipers Club since 2019. Michael, from Co. Tyrone, is a solicitor based in Belfast. He plays with the renowned Blackwater Céilí Band, and was a finalist in the 2020 Seán Ó Riada Gold Medal competition. He has toured extensively and has had many radio and TV appearances.
Annie Smyth – from Ballymacnab near Armagh, Annie studied with the Pipers Club for over 10 years and has also worked for it as a tutor and helping to run the annual William Kennedy Piping Festival. Although she also plays banjo and piano, she is best known as a fiddler, and was a finalist in the 2021 and 2022 Fiddler of London competitions. Annie is going into her final year in Dublin City University.
Aoife Smyth – Annie’s sister Aoife, who has just completed her first year in the University of Galway, was taught uilleann pipes in Armagh Pipers Club by Tiarnán Ó Duinnchinn and Éamonn Curran. Her prodigious talent caused Éamonn to lament how embarrassing it was to learn from one’s pupils!
Níall Hughes – a member of a large musical family from Keady, in south Armagh, Níall plays the button accordion, and is a singer and lilter. He is currently studying computer science at Queens University Belfast.
Danú McKinney – the youngest member of the Pipers Club contingent, fiddler Danú is one of five siblings attending the Club’s classes, where her mother Donna is a senior tutor. Danú, like Annie, was a finalist in the 2022 Fiddler of London competition.
Oisín McCann – a former flute tutor with the Club, Oisín is a multi-instrumentalist (keyboards, uilleann pipes, whistles, guitar, accordion and whatever you’re having yourself), as well as a composer and arranger. From Newry, Co. Down, he is a fourth-year student at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
The Pipers Club logo, based on an image on the 9th-century High Cross of Monasterboice, shows a player of the triple pipes – an ancient instrument that survives in Sicily as the launeddas.