Eliot Grasso

    Eliot has taught, performed, and recorded throughout

North America and Europe for over two decades and is a founding member of the Celtic ensemble Dréos. He has  performed for President Clinton at the NEA Awards, appeared as a featured artist on “Prairie Home Companion,” performed and taught for the William Kennedy Piping Festival in Armagh, and appeared as a soloist in the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall for

Scotland’s National Piping Festival, Piping Live. Eliot has over a dozen recordings to his name, including an album of unaccompanied uilleann piping, which is volume 1 of Na Píobairí Uilleann’s series of master pipers, The Ace and Deuce of Piping.

     Eliot holds a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of Oregon, and a M.A. in ethnomusicology from the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at the University of Limerick. Grasso’s artistic and academic work as a performer, recording artist, composer, and researcher has earned awards from the traditional music community, the recording industry, and the academic establishment. He teaches music at Gutenberg College in Eugene, Oregon.

Michael Roddy

     Michael has spent over 20 years creating his unique combination of Scottish and Irish piping styles. After years of competitive success with pipe bands, Michael turned to the world of bellows piping, making the natural leap to small pipes and border pipes, and the bigger leap to the Irish uilleann pipes.  He has been featured as a piper with the Genesee Symphony Orchestra, The Syracuse Vocal Ensemble, the Mohawk Valley Choral Society, and the Cayuga Vocal Ensemble. Michael is an active teacher and has premiered several of his own compositions and arrangements for pipes and orchestra.

Brandon Davis

    Brandon  is a Founding Member of the BRIMS Uilleann Piping Program and has made considerable contribution to the program.  He has been obsessed with uilleann piping for over fifteen years and counting.  As a youth, he started and excelled with Great Highland Pipes.  He then added Small Pipes- and eventually Uilleann Pipes.  He has had instruction from many world class pipers at Tionóls and Workshops in the US and Ireland. 

    He has been hosting a local Irish session in Roanoke VA for over fifteen years now and also host a slow session for the past six years.  He has taught classes and workshops at multiple BRIMS Tionóls.  He is currently a member of the Star City Céilí Band playing various tin whistles and Uilleann Pipes.  He was the first recipient of the “BRIMS Golden Chanter Award”!!

Colleen Shanks 

    Colleen is an uilleann piper based in Co. Clare, Ireland. Originally from Michigan, she first found herself captivated by the sound of traditional Irish music when she heard a recording of The Chieftains at age 10. With an avid desire to learn and play what she heard, she acquired a tin whistle and began teaching herself the tunes from the cassette. She soon found herself immersed in Detroit's vibrant Irish music community.

    In Ireland, Colleen attended the University of Limerick's Irish World Academy, where she earned a Master's degree in Irish Traditional Music Performance. Her area of study was uilleann piping, and during the course, she learned from some of the top exponents of the uilleann pipes, including Michael 'Blackie' O'Connell and Mickey Dunne. Currently, Colleen teaches and performs at piping events on both sides of the Atlantic, and makes hand-stitched pipe bags at home in Co. Clare.

Janis Deane

Janis is a classically trained singer, but also an avid instrumentalist. She has played Irish music for over 30 years on Irish flute, whistle, harp, uilleann pipes, and concertina and is a member of the TIMES Band & Session Players. Janis teaches private lessons on flute, whistle, concertina  and uilleann pipes. She taught at the North Texas School of Irish Music from 2012 to 2020. She has also taught at previous BRIMS Tionóls.  She has served on the Board of Directors of the School of Irish Music and is currently the President of the Traditional Irish Music Education Society (TIMES).

Conor Freeland

Conor grew up in northeast Ohio. He has loved Irish music since a very early age, when his parents would sing him Pogues songs before bed. His experimentations with the bagpipes began in 2007 with the Great Highland Pipes, followed later by the Scottish Small pipes and Uilleann pipes, due to the need for a quieter instrument to play near other humans. He has been playing the uilleann pipes for over 15 years.  He has an interest in Historic Uilleann pipe sets.  He is currently a member of a very active Pittsburgh based band “Bealtaine”.  He is also a piping instructor in the Pittsburgh area.   By day he works as a software engineer, but only to sustain his crippling music habit.