Introducing Angela 

Angela Usher is a multi-instrumentalist, banjo, whistle and guitar player, who has been teaching Irish music since she was a teenager. Born in Derbyshire, Angela had a musical upbringing in Stockport and went on to share her talent with hundreds of pupils in Manchester. Angela recently released her first album, The Gort Mile, recorded almost exclusively in Manchester, which features other musicians from the Manchester Irish community. 

“I went from one instrument to another really on the Irish music scene. We started going in for fleadhs, into the competitions, quite young in little céilí bands and things, which I loved, and it was just really social. And then by the time I was 14 I found that I was starting to teach myself, just at home. There were little groups of children from the local school who wanted guitar lessons and things like that, so, by the time I was 17, I was teaching at one of these church halls, the same way that I'd grown up really and it progressed from there.” 

Angela’s Musical Life History 

Angela engaged with Irish culture initially through the Irish dancing passed down from her grandfather. 

“I started learning music first of all in primary school when I started the guitar and I just loved it instantly. And then probably towards the end of primary school, I started learning Irish music. The reason being that my grandad came from Galway. He didn't play music, but was an Irish dancer. So my mum and her sister started an Irish dancing class in Manchester and I started dancing when I was three, but we didn't play the music. And then one night, we were performing with our dance class and these children got up and played Irish music on the stage. And so we asked them where they learned and it was just at a local church hall, in Hume, near the centre of Manchester, and we decided to go along.” 

Angela describes attending Saturday morning Irish music classes with her siblings, where she started learning the whistle. 

“It was Comhaltas, a lady called Marian Flannery. She got married whilst we were there so Marian Egan was her name and she lives over in Kilkelly now, west of Ireland. I just loved her as well, you know, from the beginning, like instantly. It was just great.” 

It is Irish music that Angela primarily teaches in schools, but she does draw on other genres. 

“I’m always looking for new albums, old recordings, modern stuff, anything really. At school, I do teach a lot of Irish music because I teach in a school in Levenshulme where there’s quite a big Irish community. But then because I teach guitar and all sorts of things as well, I have to just adapt [...] anything they fancy really, bit of Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, and the Beatles, anything.” 

Angela also helps schools to increase their music resources and she signposts children to music groups in the wider community. 

“[One school] managed to get 10,000 pounds funding, just from their governors actually, who put it into music and I was able to go and buy wooden flutes, concertinas, button accordions, stuff like that, managed to get a couple of banjos that were borrowed. There’s a pipers club in Manchester as well and some of the children went there. One of the little lads was on uilleann pipes under-12.” 

“I really hope that they reach their potential with me, that if they love music, and they do show a natural ability for it, I get that time to spend with them.” 

The Purpose and Motivations of Angela’s Music-Making 

“I always say to the children, ‘I just want you to leave primary school and say that you've enjoyed music’”. 

The opportunity to travel as a performer of Irish music was something Angela was introduced to as a youngster. She joined her first band at the age of 14. 

“We did the fleadhs, so if you qualified, you went over to the All-Ireland and things like that. So we’d do the regional fleadhs, which would be held in either Leeds, Liverpool or Manchester. If you qualified through them, if you got first, second or third, you’d go to the All-Britain. They could be in Glasgow or London or wherever. And if you got first or second there, you'd go off to the All-Ireland.” 

In turn, it’s important for Angela to encourage her students to take their music beyond Manchester, to places like Glasgow, London and the Cambridge Folk Festival. Travel is something that Angela continues to enjoy as a performer. 

“Two years or three years ago I did a solo album. And so I went out to Australia and New Zealand, did a couple of festivals over there. That was in 2019 I did that. And I did some launches then in Ireland. We did a launch in Manchester. I played at the Birmingham Trad Fest...” 

Angela’s playing and teaching go hand-in-hand and she has now taught so many children that she has seen subsequent generations coming of age, forming incredibly strong social and musical bonds. 

“I do loads of playing. And I did a lot of playing around Manchester at a lot of sessions, as well as the teaching, so it’s a nice balance.” 

“You just see it happening over and over again, which is beautiful really, the next lot that are coming up. There's probably a gang of them now, probably aged about nine to 13 and you can just see that they're really bonding, parents are bonding, everything. It's like a real community thing. You can just see that if they keep it up, they'll end up as really good friends and carrying on the culture. I always laugh and say, ‘You're gonna be our retirement plan when I get too old to play!’” 

Irish Music-Making in Manchester 

“It's still lovely. And there's probably a lot of people my age who've got their kids playing and that now, and I've played with their parents.” 

Angela sees something special about musicians from Manchester’s Irish scene, in that they never forget where they’re from. 

“We’re really, really lucky that we've got these women and men who are probably in their 40s and 50s, who have gone away and they've been successful and they still know where their roots are and they still encourage others. I think it's really special.” 

In order to encourage the next generation, Angela expands her full classroom teaching with other types of music provision in schools. 

“We do music therapy sessions, where some of the children who might struggle, or some who are showing real talent, can come out and either do a one-to-one or do some small group things.” 

Angela sees her commitment to the next generation as a responsibility to ensure that Manchester’s dynamic Irish music scene continues. 

“We're really lucky in Manchester because there’s some really successful musicians who've come through in the Irish music scene and they always seem to come back. Say, for example, Colin Farrell, the fiddle player, who lives in America, and whistle player, who’s done lots of albums. He plays with Lúnasa; Sean Regan, who plays with Shannon Shannon, who lives in Galway; Mike McGoldrick, who's based in Manchester most of the time, but tours with Mark Knopfler and tours all over the world. And there's loads of them like that and they're really encouraging of all the young ones that are coming up. They'll come back and play in the sessions and sit down and play with anybody, you know, and really encourage the young kids. It's really nice and I think we all try to be like that for the youngsters coming up and we're all proud of it. I think we're all proud to be from Manchester.” 

“I want to keep teaching for as long as I can, but I'm also encouraging the younger ones to do what I've done.”