Dear Reader - The ONLY Theme Night of 2026 takes place next week!
The Big Thing
This time next week we’ll be in the Hawk’s Well setting up for the big show!
And it’s coming together nicely!
We have a young musician who went viral worldwide last summer returning to the Theme Nights for the first time in 7 years.
I was driving to Collooney on Sunday evening and the final (and most important) piece of the jigsaw fell into place - can’t wait for you all to see what we have ready for you now…
AND the big meeting with Niamh Crowley has taken place (see below) - so there will be some tasty string and horn arrangements incoming soon!
Friday and Saturday are sold out but still some tickets for Wed and Thurs here.
Where else but Sligo?
There was a serious gang of piano players/teachers present at our student concerts in Strandhill last Thursday and Friday. Bridget, Sarah, Conor, Odhran and Annette (pic below - left to right) are all accomplished gigging piano players and popular teachers.
We had an interesting conversation at one point between concerts - Sarah had been trying to learn the chords of the middle section of Send In The Clowns that day and there were a few that were tricky. We all sat down and had a go but none of us could quite nail them. I said (to my eternal shame!) “surely there’s a chord chart somewhere on the internet” - to which Odhran replied “but that takes away all the fun”!
I loved it. It’s exactly our philosophy. There are chord charts on the internet for every song in the world, but it is far more fun (and way more beneficial to you as a musician!) to work them out yourself. Which is exactly what we try and teach our students to do.
Sarah treated us (and the older students) to a beautiful rendition of Vincent (the chords are more straightforward for this song) on both nights too.
Thanks to everyone who performed and to all the teachers for their help - we were in Boyle on Wednesday night too - they were special nights one and all.
What’s New?
Pop Up Theatre are back!
They are presenting Rock of Ages in the Hawk’s Well Theatre in the first week of April and tickets go on sale this coming Monday Feb 2 at 10am. Find them here.
And given the soundtrack is largely from the 80s - we are thrilled that one of the leading actors from the show - Cathal Mulhern - is going to join us on stage for Theme Night #37 on the Wednesday and Friday shows…
Finally…
As performed last Thursday and Friday!
Till next time - Kieran.
