About the Hurdy-Gurdy & Bagpipe Foundation
The Hurdy-Gurdy and Bagpipe Foundation is founded in 1985 and focuses on the hurdy-gurdy and the Western European continental bagpipes. With love for the music and these instruments, we want as many people as possible to play and train musicians. Our foundation is therefore an independent non-profit organisation that runs entirely on volunteers.
The purpose of the Hurdy-Gurdy and Bagpipe Foundation is described in its statutes as ‘promoting hurdy-gurdy and bagpipes in the broadest sense’. And that can be broad. This is because the instruments have always had a place in the Dutch music world and always deserve one!
The Dutch Hurdy-Gurdy & Bagpipe Foundation therefore pays particular attention to:
- the instruments themselves, with the foundation focusing mainly on the types of the Western European mainland. So this does not include the well-known Scottish bagpipes (higlandpipes)!
- spreading and keeping alive the music played on hurdy-gurdy and bagpipes. This can be anything: classical, balfolk, rock, traditional folk music, indy or modern repertoire.
Example of our activities:
- A Course day in October, with courses for beginners to more advanced players. For hurdy-gurdy, bagpipes, accordion, ensemble… we have a total of 12 different courses. We organise this annual course day most of the times in the second of first weekend of October.
- A series of monthly courses, for bagpipes, hurdy-gurdy, accordeon and ensemble. From November through May, players from all over the country then meet in Zeist one Saturday a month.
- A course weekend in April, in the woods of Sint-Michielsgestel (near Den Bosch). This annual folk weekend offers a choice of many workshops, such as for hurdy-gurdy, singing, diatonic accordion, bagpipes, nyckelharpa and ensemble playing. There are workshops for beginners, intermediate and advanced players. Always a fun weekend, with workshops during the day and concerts, balls and jam sessions in the evening.
- Instrument try-out sessions: To promote playing an instrument and to introduce more people to making music, we sometimes organise a “instrument try-out session” at festivals. Here visitors of the festival can try out a hurdy-gurdy, bagpipe themselves and often accordion and nyckelharpa too, under the guidance of an experienced player. We try to make it more easy to try a gurdy or bagpipe. If you want to play piano of guitar, you can easily find a place to try these instruments… but a gurdy of a bagpipe? We’ve organised these instrument try-out sessions at Dutch festivals like Castlefest, CaDansa, Elfia, Parkfest, Summer Darkness, Celtic & Balfolk Night, etc.
The organisation:
- Chairman & bookings: Menno Wester, menno@draailier-doedelzak.nl
- Secretary: Piter Jellema, piter@draailier-doedelzak.nl
- Finance & accountants: Delia Komen, penningmeester@draailier-doedelzak.nl