Thank you for joining us for Éigse CIM, A Gaela Event!

Over twenty years, community support has helped the Center for Irish Music develop into the thriving cultural organization it is today. With 35% growth in students from 2020-2022, many new teaching artists-in-training, and a whole new generation of learners, we need your support more than ever.

Your generous tax-deductible gift to the 2025 fund-a-need will provide critical support for CIM’s core mission-driven programs like financial aid, the Minnesota Irish Music Weekend, instrument rental program and instructor training initiatives. 

Here are just a few reasons why hundreds of people choose to support the Center for Irish Music each year:

• The Center for Irish Music is a unique local arts organization. Beyond being a top-class educational institution that trains skilled musicians of all ages, we are an artist-led collaborative that lifts up the living tradition of Irish music and makes it accessible to a wide variety of people. 
   
• The Center for Irish Music is making a profound impact. The music we celebrate, and teach, carries with it the stories of our lives, and the lives of those who came before us. When we play music together, we are connected to ourselves and one another, and reminded of what it means to be human. We feel connected to our Irish heritage, or for those of us without Irish genes, our affinity for Irish culture.
   
• The Center for Irish Music is community-minded, and our instructors extend that spirit through their own artistic projects and volunteering. We collaborate with our special partners at the Celtic Junction Arts Center, sharing our space the the Sunday sessions when their space is full, and working together on events. CIM works to bring music and help promote the Irish Fair of Minnesota, Irish Arts Minnesota, the dance community and the wider arts community.
   
• The Center for Irish Music is trustworthy. You can trust that your donation will go towards our mission of handing down that tradition, that we will use every penny wisely, transparently, and in a thoughtful way that is based on our community’s needs. We love our generous donors, and we see you as partners in our mission.

Your donation tonight is helping to ensure a vibrant, living tradition of Irish music for the generations ahead. Let’s raise a glass to twenty more years of handing down the tradition!

Here’s to the music, and to you for supporting local artists and local traditions while also lifting up the art form of traditional Irish music.

- Norah Rendell, Executive Artistic Director