For the past 15 years and more, friendships and working relationships with individuals and groups around Ireland has assisted the development of samba drumming skills and enabled a good quality of product at performance events.

Over the past year, a new networking and partnerships project has grown from similar ideas at Beat in Belfast and maSamba in Dublin. In 2006 we called it ‘ID’ – which stands for ‘identity’ and more straight-forwardly, ‘Ireland Drummers’.

The main ideas were to work with carnival and samba drummers across Ireland; to combine our personnel and skills resources; do outreach in local communities; bring people together for training – and work on a common repertoire, so that we can perform as a large-scale, cohesive group, particularly at major festival and carnival programmes, in Ireland and beyond.

There were initial training workshops in October and November 2006 and the project debuted with performances at Beat’s Lantern Festival in Belfast on 23rd November and 9th December. The highlight was work with Dudu Tucci on 8th and 9th December that drummers from around Ireland were invited to attend.

See http://www.belfastcarnival.com/article.asp?article_id=5004