With the blessing of the former World Music Company, the spirit of the beloved neighborhood music school lives on at the new Lesson Factory Chicago, 10936 S. Western Ave. A core group of teachers, who enriched WMC for 13 years and built a large and devoted following of students before the school closed last November, is now teaching at Lesson Factory (773-779-7059).
Acclaimed Irish musician, David James, is one of those teachers, teaching violin, Irish fiddle, tin whistle, hammered dulcimer and bodhran.
David James was the 2002 All-Ireland Champion, the only American to win solo senior All-Ireland Championships in the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann (Festival of Irish Traditional Music) on the hammered dulcimer. That was his third championship (Listowel, Co. Kerry, Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, 2002). The first was in Sligo in 1989, the second at Listowel in 1995, where he also performed in the International Concert and was featured in the official Fleadh video. He is the 1996 Winfield (KS) Walnut Valley Festival National Hammered Dulcimer Champion. He received a Master Folk Fellowship award from the Indiana Arts Commission in 1990, and another Individual Artist Award in 2000. He has won many US Midwest Fleadh titles on the dulcimer, fiddle, in trio competitions, in traditional singing and newly composed song categories. He was included among 100 Fascinating People of the Century in Michiana (northern Indiana, southern Michigan) by the South Bend Tribune newspaper.David was also the Saturday night headliner at the first dulcimer festival ever held in Ireland, the Cork Dulcimer Festival.
David has performed and conducted workshops from California to Maine. He performs on the hammered dulcimer, fiddle, guitar and Irish bouzouki, concertina, bodhrán, and harmonicas. He sings and plays Irish tunes and songs, liberally laced with American old-time music and his own compositions. He appears as a soloist, also with Midwestern Fleadh tin whistle and singing winner Kim Hoffmann. They have joined others to create larger ceili bands for Irish social dancing at places like Milwaukee Irish Fest, Chicago’s Gaelic Park and the Irish American Heritage Center.
David is available as a solo Feis musician on the fiddle, or hammered dulcimer, if you’re adventurous!
He frequently co-hosts Irish Music Sessions at the Fiddler’s Hearth, 127 N. Main St. in South Bend, IN, with Kim Hoffmann.
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