Scholarships

Scholarships to Attend Cascadia Irish Music Week

We are very happy to announce the availability of visiting and local scholarships to Cascadia Irish Music Week, which takes place July 21-27 at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, USA. On this page you’ll find all the information about applying for a scholarship. 

The scholarships include:
  • Each Local Scholarship includes full tuition for classes plus meals at the Evergreen State College during the week 
  • Each Visiting Scholarship includes tuition for classes plus meals and lodging at the Evergreen State College during the week 

The scholarships do not include:
  • Airfares and transportation to or from the camp
  • Costs for a parent or chaperone to attend
  • (Students under 18 must have a parent or chaperone on campus. CIMW offers a special reduced rate for chaperones that includes meals and lodging at cost.)

Criteria and deadline


The deadline for applying for one of our scholarships is May 9, 2019. Results will be announced by the end of May.   
Recipients must not have received a scholarship to any earlier Cascadia Irish Music Week and must be:
  • Between 12 and 21 years old
  • Experienced and reasonably competent at playing Irish traditional music on one of the instruments we teach:
Fiddle
Flute
Tin whistle
Button accordion
Concertina (anglo)
Irish tenor banjo
Guitar (Irish accompaniment)

How to Apply


1 - Please make a video of yourself playing a REEL, a JIG, and a HORNPIPE at moderate tempos
The tunes must be unaccompanied
The tunes should be well-known Irish traditional tunes, not recently composed or too obscure
(For example, anything from the Fionn Seisún series of books and CDs would be good.)

For guitar accompaniment you can play along with an unaccompanied recording or a live musician. If you need help on this please email us and we’ll send recordings.

Don’t worry about making a high quality video, just shoot it with a cell phone or camcorder
You can upload the video to YouTube and send us the URL, or you can upload it to DropBox and share it with  scholarships@cascadiairish.org

2 - Email a paragraph about your interest in Irish traditional music to  scholarships@cascadiairish.org
Tell us your three favorite musicians on your instrument, and mention a couple of your favorite recordings

3 - Don’t stress out too much about all this. :-)  We’re looking for people who have a strong interest in our music and have made some effort to learn it.

If you have any questions about the scholarships or the application process, please email us at scholarships@cascadiairish.org