Saturday, June 2, 2018, 1:30 PM – 5:30 PM
Peter Browne was born in Dublin in 1953 and commenced playing traditional music at the age of 6. He received tuition in the playing of the uilleann pipes from three of the great players of modern times; Séamus Ennis, Leo Rowsome and Willie Clancy and on reaching his teens was already acknowledged as a leading player of that instrument.
In the early 1970's he played with the group 1691 which was a forerunner of The Bothy Band and later spent two periods playing on both pipes and flute with The Bothy Band who were much celebrated for their skilled and energetic approach to the playing of traditional Irish music.
He has twice been the winner of the Oireachtas uilleann-piping competition (The Breandán Breathnach Trophy in 1994 and 1998) and has also won the prize for slow-air playing in both those years. He currently works as Commissioning Editor, Music Programmes in RTÉ Radio One with a special interest in traditional music. His most recent projects have included researching, presenting and producing series of documentary programmes on the lives and music of famous traditional players such as Séamus Ennis, Willie Clancy, Pádraig O' Keeffe, Denis Murphy, Elizabeth Crotty and the 19th century traditional music collector Canon James Goodman.
He has also produced a series of commercial CDs for RTÉ which feature rare recordings of traditional music from the RTÉ Sound Archives, the latest of which are The Return from Fingal which features old recordings of the piper Séamus Ennis made over a 40 year period along with extensive biographical and musical notes, Elizabeth Crotty - Concertina Music from West Clare, a compilation of rare recordings by a famous musician from the West of Ireland and Labhrás Ó Cadhla, Amhráin ó Shliabh gCua, a collection of songs by a famous Waterford sean-nós singer.
He currently teaches music part-time at the Dublin Institute of Technology and is much in demand as musician, teacher and lecturer at musical gatherings and festivals at home and abroad.
