The Burlington Irish Heritage Festival celebrates and raises awareness of Irish and Irish-American culture in Burlington, Vermont and the surrounding region, with a special focus on the calendar period around St. Patrick’s Day. The BIHF works with local musicians, dancers, writers, historians, artists, and co-sponsors to create a core set of events during the week closest to St. Patrick’s Day.

Schedule of Events:

6:00 pm - 9:00 pm: Secret of Roan Inish – film screening

The Burlington Irish Heritage Festival, in partnership with Champlain College, offers an evening of Ireland related films. The Secret of Roan Inish, a John Sayles film from 1995, centered on Irish selkie folklore. This will be followed by several film shorts from Champlain College students who’ve spent a semester at Champlain’s Dublin campus.

We are very fortunate to have Mason Daring, the composer of the music score for the Secret of Roan Inish, attending this screening. Mr. Daring will speak about his work melding music to moving images and the creative process this type of composition entails. All films will be shown in Champlain College’s auditorium.

6:00 pm - 9:00 pm: Mason Daring – Film Composer and Record Producer

Mason Daring, the composer of the music score for the Secret of Roan Inish, will kick off the evening’s screening of the film. Mr. Daring will speak about his work melding music to
moving images and the creative process this type of composition entails.

Mason Daring is a film composer, record producer, and former Associate Professor of Berklee College of Music. He maintains homes in Savannah, Georgia, Marblehead ,Massachusetts, and Pawlet, Vermont. He is a graduate of Amherst College and Suffolk Law School, and a member of the Massachusetts bar. He has composed music for over 75 feature films, including 16 with John Sayles, including Eight Men Out, Passionfish, Matewan, Lone Star, The Secret of Roan Inish, and Go For Sisters. He was nominated for a Prime Time Emmy in 2001, and the Chicago Critics award in 1995. He has worked with such established producers and directors as Wes Craven, (Music of the Heart) Tom Hanks( Earth to the Moon),  Tony Goldwyn (Walk on the Moon) and Matt Williams ( Where the Heart Is).  In addition to dramatic scoring, Mason Daring has written scores for dozens of documentaries, He co-wrote the theme for the PBS series Frontline, which is the longest running TV theme currently on the air (40 years). For over twenty years he was the proprietor of Daring Records, a subsidiary of Rounder Records in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he produced such well known artists as Butch Thompson,  Jeanie Stahl ( with whom he has performed nationally for almost fifty years), Duke Levine, and Guy Van Duser and Billy Novick. For further information please consult his homepage at Masondaring.com, or IMDB or Wickepedia.

8:00 pm - 9:00 pm: Champlain College Student Filmmaking Showcase

Since 2008 Champlain College has maintained a study abroad campus in Dublin where part of the curriculum includes documentary filmmaking.  Three short works from recent students will be featured.

A screening of the film The Secret of Road Inish will kick off the evening and precede the student films with a special appearance by the film’s composer, Mason Daring, who will share highlights of the making of the film.