h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Mrs Recumbent (an upright person) is a recorder teacher, and her star pupil is Laoise O'Brien. Laoise learned recorder and then flute from her as a little girl, before going to the DIT College of Music. There she won all the prizes that were going, the crowning achievement being the Open Wind category in the major national music competition, the Feis Ceoil. She also was leader of the wind section in various orchestras, including one I conducted in the late eighties and early nineties.

She then startled her flute teacher by announcing that whe was going back to the recorder. She studied in Amsterdam with Paul Leenhouts and came back to Ireland to become the country's leading recorder player and teacher.

I have played in many concerts with Laoise, and have taken a small part with her on a couple of Cds: one for the DIT (where we both teach) and a truly delightful one this year, of her own conception: How Happy for the Little Birds http://www.laoiseobrien.com/#/cd/4553539190

The Feis Ceoil is a venerable institution; James Joyce won a bronze medal for Tenor Solo in 1904, the year of Bloomsday, and John McCormack won the gold the previous year. In her own time, Mrs Recumbent also won the Open Wind, on flute. My own highest accolade was a silver medal in the Madrigal competition, conducting the Woolfgang Singers in 1968.

The DIT CD 'Flow My Tears: musical journeys with the Flight of the Earls' (performed by the Irish Traditional Music Ensemble and the Early Music Ensemble of the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama) never made it to the shops, due to the arcana of the DIT (Dublin Institute of Technology) accounting system: the music department was not permitted to issue invoices. However, all the tracks can be downloaded free here http://arrow.dit.ie/aaconmusaud/ (they are the first 17 'Submissions from 2006').