The Fifth Annual Irish Tenor Banjo Summit takes over Creative Alliance on September 25th and 26th! Join us for a full weekend of dancing, performances, and workshops celebrating traditional Irish music.
While the Summit is dedicated to the Irish tenor banjo, we have something for all lovers of Irish traditional music! On Friday night we’ll have an instructor concert featuring Clíodhna Costello and Pádraig Ó Dubhgaill, Dan Neely with Diarmuid Ó Meachair and Matt Mulqueen, and Simon Lace with Eamon Sefton and Noah Kelly. We’ll have sessions all day on Saturday, and the theater lobby of the Creative Alliance will also serve as an instrument flea market - feel free to bring banjos or other instruments that you’d like to display or sell!
Banjo players who register for workshops will receive three intensive workshops with our banjo tutors, and will be divided into three groups to keep workshops intimate. They will also all attend the fourth block together, which will be a full-length presentation and performance with Dan Neely, Matt Mulqueen, and Diarmuid Ó Meachair presenting the music of the Flanagan Brothers, who played on the first recordings of the tenor banjo in Irish traditional music. We also offer four non-banjo masterclasses in fiddle, box, guitar, and a two-block sean nos dance intensive during each of the slots, which can be purchased individually or in addition to the all-day banjo classes. Scroll down to view this year’s staff of instructors!
Register for the Banjo Summit
A weekend pass that includes all workshops as well as the Friday night concert and Saturday ceili. Workshop will be selected at checkout!
Banjo players will attend THREE (3) workshops with Dan Neely, Simon Lace, and Cliodhna Costello
Non-banjo players will attend ONE (1) 90-minute masterclass in Guitar, Fiddle, or B/C button accordion
ALL workshop participants will be able to attend the 90-minute Flanagan brothers performance.
A ticket to the Friday night instructor concert at the Banjo Summit featuring Clíodhna Costello and Pádraig Ó Dubhgaill, Dan Neely with Diarmuid Ó Meachair and Matt Mulqueen, and Simon Lace with Eamon Sefton and Noah Kelly.
A ticket good for either the guitar, box, fiddle, or dance masterclass. Workshop will be selected at checkout.
This ticket will get you access to all 3 banjo classes (90 minutes each) in addition to the Flanagan Brothers performance and presentation on Saturday. Level will be selected at checkout.
Our Banjo Faculty
Cliodhna Costello
Clíodhna Costello hails from North Tipperary; an area rich in traditional music. She was immersed in music from a young age, both at home among her siblings, and with local musicians, the likes of Paddy O’Brien, his daughter Eileen, the Larkins, O’Connors and Slatterys to name but a few. She started learning piano and whistle at a young age and quickly progressed to the banjo. She learned much early on from listening to the likes of John Carty, John Morrow, Brian McGrath and Jody Moran.
Clíodhna’s rhythmic style is widely admired, and she has won numerous awards for her playing. She regularly teaches at Irish music festivals and has travelled across the world, performing and teaching throughout Europe, the US and as far afield as New Zealand. She has appeared on television and radio broadcasts at home, as well as on a number of recordings, including Johnny Óg Connolly’s Fear Inis Bearacháin in 2018. She is currently recording an album with Johnny Óg Connolly and Padraig O Dubhghaill. Cliodhna lives in east Galway, where she plays regularly.
Simon Lace
Simon Lace has established himself as one of the most prominent rising talents in Irish Traditional Music west of the Atlantic. Hailing from Northern California, he got his start in music learning rock and jazz but was exposed to Irish music from an early age through the traditional music community of his hometown, Nevada City. While studying composition and jazz at San Francisco State University, Simon honed his guitar and banjo skills in the SF Bay Area trad community. Since moving to Boston, his sophisticated banjo and guitar playing has made him a fixture in the Irish music scene. He has been heard performing at events such as the Maine Celtic Celebration and Boston Celtic Music Festival, in addition to hosting weekly sessions in the greater Boston area.
Simon has taught at programs such as CCÉ Boston Music School and the Baltimore Irish Tenor Banjo Summit, and won 1st place at the 2023 and 2024 Mid Atlantic Fleadh on banjo, mandolin, and guitar accompaniment. In addition to his own projects, he also tours the US and Australia as featured guitarist with A Taste of Ireland Dance Company
Dan Neely
Daniel Neely is a musician and ethnomusicologist (Ph.D, New York University 2008). He's written the weekly column about traditional music for New York's Irish Echo newspaper since 2012 and has been a member of Ward Irish Music Archive's advisory board since 2021. From 2008-2023, he was the Public Relations Officer for the Mid-Atlantic Region of Comhaltas Ceoltoirí Éireann and from 2012-2016 he was the artistic director of the Augusta Irish Week in Elkins, West Virginia. In addition, he led the popular traditional music session at Lillie’s Bar and Restaurant in Manhattan from 2009-2017, played tenor banjo with the champion New York Céilí Band in 2016-2017, and from 2005–2013 he led the Washington Square Harp and Shamrock Orchestra, a New York-based group that was modeled on the Irish-American dance bands of the 1920s and 1930s. He learned to play the tenor banjo from Mick Moloney and the fiddle from Brian Conway. Dan gives lectures and multimedia performances about Irish music history, and has shared his work at institutions including Boston College, Holy Cross, Technical University Dublin, Na Píobairí Uilleann, the Catskills Irish Arts Week, the Irish American Heritage Museum, and the Ward Irish Music Archives.
Our Masterclass Instructors
Diarmuid Ó Meachair, B/C Button Accordion
Diarmuid Ó Meachair is a traditional Irish accordion and melodeon player from Cúil Aodha, Co. Cork, and is also a sean-nós singer. In 2022, he was awarded the prestigious TG4 Ceoltóir Óg na Bliana (Young Musician of the Year).
Diarmuid currently teaches Irish traditional music at University College Cork and also teaches at Holy Cross University in Worcester, Massachusetts. He has performed with De Dannan internationally since 2022.
Over the past two years, Diarmuid has released four solo albums and he has been nominated for three RTÉ Folk Awards: Best Instrumentalist (2023 & 2024) and Best Emerging Artist (2023).
Pádraig Ó Dubhgaill, Guitar Accompaniment
Pádraig was born and raised in Inverin, situated in the Connemara Gaeltacht of Co. Galway. He started learning the tin-whistle at a young age under the tutelage of Mary Bergin before picking up the guitar at 17 years of age. After spending a couple of years playing a variety of music, Pádraig decided to apply his guitar-playing skills to Irish traditional music. While completing the MA in Irish Music Performance at the University of Limerick, he learnt from some of the best accompanists in the tradition including Steve Cooney and John Blake.
Pádraig was featured on his first Irish traditional music recording in 2018 - Fear Inis Bearachain; with Johnny Óg Connolly and has since been involved in various commercial recordings and television broadcasts. In 2022 (Dubai) and again in 2025 (Japan), Pádraig got the chance to represent Ireland at the World EXPO as a member of the National Concert Hall's EXPO Players group. He has a great interest in the music of his locality as well and has been involved in a number of archive projects with the Irish Traditional Music Archive in recent years. Pádraig regularly performs with some of the finest exponents of Irish Traditional Music at various concerts and festivals at home and abroad each year and is also in-demand as a guitar teacher.
Kate Spanos, Sean Nos Dance
Kate Spanos is a dancer and dance scholar with a Ph.D. in dance and performance studies from the University of Maryland and an M.A. in traditional Irish dance performance from the University of Limerick. She began her Irish dance journey in 1990 at her local CCÉ céilís and the O’Neill-James School of Irish Dance in the Washington, DC region. She has been teaching Irish dance since 1998. She had a successful competitive dance career that led her to the World Championships in Belfast in 2000. She also trained and taught with Carmel O’Rourke-Tighe in Charlottesville, VA (2000-2007), and Maria Oliver in Chico, CA (2008-2010).
Kate has studied various Irish dance styles, including competition/feis style, sean nós, old-style step dance, and festival style from Northern Ireland. She currently studies festival style with Lauren Smyth of County Down. Other notable teachers include Catherine Foley, Michael Ryan, Breandán de Gallaí, Colin Dunne, Jonathan Kelliher, Jimmy Smith, Padraig O hOibicin, Roisín Ni Mhainin, Máire Áine Ní Iarnáin, and Ruth Long.
With over two decades of teaching experience, Kate’s vision is to create a space for dancers interested in exploring the diversity of Irish dance, beyond the competition world, to gain a holistic understanding of the genre as a traditional and innovative form. Her program is strongly rooted in traditional Irish dance techniques but also encourages dancers to develop their own voices as performers and creators. She emphasizes playfulness while taking seriously the Irish dance tradition and its history. Her academic studies inform her approach to Irish dance and she gains inspiration from dancing masters over the past century who made significant contributions to the genre, both inside and outside of Irish dance’s larger governing bodies.
Kate has received two Maryland Traditions Folklife Apprenticeship Grants (2022 and 2024) from the Maryland State Arts Council to teach Irish dance.
Noah Kelly, Fiddle
Noah Kelly is a multi-genre musician currently based in Boston, MA. He was born in Quito, Ecuador in 1999 and later adopted by his parents of Irish heritage in 2000. Noah was raised in Boston and started playing the violin at the age of six through the New England Conservatory Preparatory School and the non-profit music program Project STEP (String Training Education Program). Though Noah spent most of his childhood and adolescent life training as a classical violinist, he also learned how to improvise in a variety of musical styles by attending many summer music camps and festivals. It was through these eclectic learning environments in which Noah discovered his profound passion for playing Irish traditional music on the fiddle. He took this passion to his studies at the New England Conservatory as a part of the Contemporary Musical Arts Department (formerly Contemporary Improvisation) and graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree in 2022. At NEC, he further honed his Irish fiddle playing while branching out into a variety of improvisatory concepts in world music styles such as Klezmer, Bluegrass, and Jazz, further informing his distinct musical style.
Noah went on to attend the University of Limerick’s Irish World Academy for his Master of Arts in Irish Traditional Music Performance in Limerick, County Limerick, Ireland graduating with First Class Honors. Since completing his degree, Noah has been back in Boston enjoying his work as a full-time musician. His virtuosic musicianship and technical prowess as a fiddle player have gained him recognition as an integral part of the Boston Irish music scene and beyond. In 2019, Noah won first place at the Mid-Atlantic CCÉ Fleadh Ceoil in the Slow Airs competition. He can be regularly found playing at Boston’s most iconic pubs such as The Burren, The Druid, The Black Rose and more. Noah is also a skilled guitarist, tenor banjo and Irish bouzouki player.
A weekend pass that includes all workshops as well as the Friday night concert and Saturday ceili. Workshop will be selected at checkout!
Banjo players will attend THREE (3) workshops with Dan Neely, Simon Lace, and Cliodhna Costello
Non-banjo players will attend ONE (1) 90-minute masterclass in Guitar, Fiddle, or B/C button accordion
ALL workshop participants will be able to attend the 90-minute Flanagan brothers performance.
Register for the Banjo Summit
A ticket to the Friday night instructor concert at the Banjo Summit featuring Clíodhna Costello and Pádraig Ó Dubhgaill, Dan Neely with Diarmuid Ó Meachair and Matt Mulqueen, and Simon Lace with Eamon Sefton and Noah Kelly.
A ticket good for either the guitar, box, fiddle, or dance masterclass. Workshop will be selected at checkout.
This ticket will get you access to all 3 banjo classes (90 minutes each) in addition to the Flanagan Brothers performance and presentation on Saturday. Level will be selected at checkout.