Since 1991 a group of six French musicians have been staging a summer school of Irish traditional music, song and dance in the village of Tocane-Saint-Apre in the Perigord Department of West-Central France. Set in a hilly landscape of wheat fields and vineyards dappled with brilliant sunflower crops, the August school has involved many of Ireland's top musicians as tutors, among them Martin Hayes, Jackie Daly, Kevin Burke and Nollaig Casey.
Despite getting support from the local council, the school runs on a shoestring, depending for survival on student fees and local voluntary organisation. And so, in a munificent gesture of support, its Irish organiser, set-dancer Irene Martin, tomorrow night stages a benefit concert at Dublin's Olympic Ballroom at 9 p.m. Among the top-class performers (all ex-Tocane teachers) will be: fiddlers Seamus and Manus Maguire, Paul O'Shaughnessy, Marie O'Keefe, John Carty, singers Len Graham and Padraigin Ni Uallachain, Maighread Ni Dhomhnaill, Eamon O Broithe, flute-players Tara Diamond, John Lee and Eithne O'Connor. Tickets at door, or from Claddagh Records, McNeill's Music and Hughes.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/SJQTLMCMMRC2PLALXUKEWWS6HU.png)