Cookstown piper teams up with Ulster Orchestra

A TALENTED piper from Cookstown will play at the Ulster Hall alongside a renowned Gaelic musician for a special Burns night celebration.

Emmett Conway is teaming up with the Ulster Orchestra and singing star Karen Matheson in ‘My Heart is in the Highlands’ on 25th January. They will also play the Millennium Forum in Derry city on January 26th.

Emmett is an accomplished solo and band piper who has played with a wide variety of musicians including the Fred Morrison Band and, just last week, with Phil Coulter at the opening concert of the Derry/Londonderry City of Culture 2013 celebrations.

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Emmett, who has represented Ireland in France for the MacCrimmon trophy, plays with the eight-time piping world champions, Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band, winning the world title with them for the last two years in a row.

An electrician by day, Emmett is a true music enthusiast by night and recently formed a quartet of pipers to take part in the Gig’n the Bann festival - he ended up winning first prize in the event’s Young Musician of the Year category.

Emmett’s piping will follow some lively and varied dancing by the Markethill Ulster-Scots Dancer (Armagh) and some spectacular solos by Gaelic legend Karen Matheson.

Karen began her singing career in Taynuilt’s local village hall on the West coast of Scotland and now, 40 years on, she is an internationally recognised vocalist, the proud owner of an OBE and has sold over a million albums across the globe.

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Karen is best known for her haunting vocals as the lead singer of Celtic group Capercaillie, described as ‘the most exciting and vibrant band in the field of Celtic music today’ (Billboard), but has since launched an incredibly successful solo career; Sean Connery famously described her as having ‘a throat surely touched by the hand of God’.

Join the Ulster Orchestra this January for a lively and varied evening of singing, dancing and piping for the most memorable Burns night to date.

The Ulster Hall gig will begin at 7.45pm on January 25th, and again the following evening in Derry/Londonderry’s Millennium Forum

on 26th January 2013 at 8pm.

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