Teachers | Upper Potomac Music

2024 Instructors

A master of the uilleann pipes, Irish flute, and tin whistle, Seán Gavin is one of the most highly regarded performers and teachers of traditional Irish music. He is the first musician born outside Ireland to win the prestigious Seán Ó Riada Gold medal, and the author of a popular tin whistle book published by Hal Leonard. Seán is the founder and director of the Irish Music Institute – a non-profit music school based in Southeast Michigan, and also serves as coordinator of celtic week at the Swannanoa Gathering in North Carolina.

With recordings, lectures, and performances around the globe to his credit, Seán is back in his native Detroit, where he continues to play, teach, and promote traditional Irish music.

Piper, teacher, workshop leader and composer, Dick Hensold is the leading Northumbrian smallpiper in North America, and for the past 20 years has performed and taught in England, Scotland, Japan, Canada, and across the United States.

Based in St Paul, MN, he is a full-time musician, passionately presenting the traditional music of Scotland, Cape Breton Island, and Northumberland, as well as Nordic folk music, early music, and traditional Cambodian music. He is also an active composer, studio musician and theater musician, and his solo Northumbrian smallpipes CD Big Music for Northumbrian Smallpipes was released in 2007.

Dick Hensold is a bagpipe specialist that came to the pipes after a solid early music training at Oberlin Conservatory, so he combines a love for traditional music and a rigorous emphasis on musicianship and expression—his interpretations of both early music and traditional folk are therefore not always what you would expect, but are generally universally satisfying. For the past 25 years he has performed and taught in England, Scotland, Japan, Canada, and across the United States.

2022 sees the resumption of Dick’s touring, and the release of The Welcome Companion, the new duo album with Patsy O’Brien, and the re-release of his 2007 CD, Big Music for Northumbrian Smallpipes. (See this website's "Recordings" page for more details.) He continues to teach Northumbrian smallpipes at workshops around the country and online.

Rosalind Buda is an accomplished Highland Bagpiper and Scottish Smallpipe player and teacher. Rosalind plays with the Celtic/Appalachian pipe and harp duo, The Reel Sisters, and tours yearly as a multi-instrumentalist with acclaimed Scottish fiddler, Jamie Laval. As a performer on highland pipes and bombarde, Rosalind plays with the band Brizeus and also specializes in early music, performing on medieval bagpipes and recorder with Houston-based early music ensemble, Istanpitta.

Coming from a traditional background on the pipes, Rosalind has competed at the World Pipe Band Championships with the Grade II St. Thomas Alumni Pipe Band and competes as a solo player through the Eastern United States Pipe Band Association. Rosalind has a deep love for Celtic music and looks to music from Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, and Appalachia for inspiration.

Years of experience as a performer and teacher in these different genres gives Rosalind a unique perspective on music and a multi-faceted, holistic approach to teaching both classical and folk music. She brings this musically encouraging approach to both her private students and college students.

Iain MacHarg has been a familiar face at the highland games since very early in his life. As his father is one on the premier bagpipe builders in the world, it is no surprise that Iain developed into a well respected and accomplished player.

In addition to competing as a professional grade solo piper, Iain has also been involved in many other aspects of Celtic music. He has founded four Highland Pipe Bands in Vermont and has played with several folk groups. Iain’s solo albums, Rooted in Tradition, Ceol Na Beinne, and his Christmas Album, Celtic Christmas, are sold in many areas of the world. Iain has also published Feadan Mor, a collection of original tunes for the bagpipe. During the mid 80s, Iain was heavily involved with the Scottish Smallpipe revival, and has become a prominent teacher on the east coast.

After completing his Masters of Education at the University of Vermont in 1997, Iain applied his education in a way that his professors never would have imagined. He began to develop the Vermont Institute of Celtic Arts. Iain holds the senior certificate and the teaching certificate from the Institute of Piping, Scotland. He won 4 out of 9 categories in the 2008 EUSPBA composing contest. He currently works as Vermont’s only full-time piping instructor, and is also a music professor at Norwich University. In addition to his approximately 90 solo students, Iain also teaches group and band workshops.