Celtic Connections 2016: a taste of the festival

Celtic Connections, held in Glasgow in January each year, lights up Scotland’s winter with music from artists who connect to their heritage and carry that connection forward. This year artists from Africa, Mongolia, France, Canada, the United States, Ireland, and many other countries join musicians from all across Scotland for eighteen days of musical celebration, a celebration which includes concerts, master classes, talks, art exhibits, come and try workshops on a range of instruments, concerts for school children, late night sessions, the after hours festival club, live broadcasts and tapings of radio and television shows, concerts which feature rising stars...

Here is a bit of what things in Glasgow have looked like so far, The festival runs through 31 January.

At a concert by the Chieftains from Ireland, surprise guest Kris Kristofferson sang with Aylth McCormack. McCormack, who frequently collaborates with the Chieftains, is from Lewis in the Western Isles.

Brian Finnegan lent his talents on whistle to a concert with his musical friends Kathleen MacInnes, Dermot Byrne, and Mike Vass.

As part of the New Voices strand, with which Celtic Connections commissions new music, guitarist Ewan Robertson gave the world premier of his audio visual piece inspired by the Celtman triathalon and the landscapes and history the marathon’s route traverses in Scotland’s north.

Kyle Carey and Giilebride MacMillan offered sets of Gaelic Americana and Gaelic songs and then joined up to sing together at evening’s end.

Eddi Reader celebrated Burns night with a program in collaboration with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, in arrangements Rabbie himself would have found intriguing.

Photographs by Kerry Dexter. made with permission of the artists, the festival and the venues involved. Thank you for respecting copyright.

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From Denmark: Helene Blum

Helene Blum sings in an expressive soprano, taking ideas and melodies of her native land into contemporary song and shedding light on music from Danish tradition. Her solo album En Gang og Altid is a fine showcase for both these things, whether or not you speak Danish. She has an excellent Christmas album out as well.

So what is Danish folk music? As Denmark is both harbour and crossroads, geographically, so it is musically. Germany, Sweden, Finland, Norway, France, and the Celtic lands all come in as influencers, and in many ways Danish folk music stirs all that into its own sound, a sound Blum has been exploring since childhood, when she first took up the violin. Singing called to her as time passed, though, and she became the first vocalist to receive a diploma from the folk music program at Denmark’s renown Carl Nielsen Academy. She tours and teaches internationally, and has appeared at the Celtic Colours Festival on Cape Breton and Celtic Connections in Glasgow, among other places.

En Gang og Altid (the title translates to English as Once and Forever) is a lovely musical journey -- and there’s an Irish twist to it as well, with Armagh native Brian Finnegan sitting in on flutes for the opening song, Vil som du jeg, and several other tracks as well. Harald Haugaard, who co wrote a number of the tunes, supports on fiddle and other instruments, and with Blum co produced the tasteful arrangements of fiddle, cello, flute, guitar and occasional horns which back her voice.




Are you following the World Cup? Denmark has a team in the running. No football commentary forthcoming here along the music road, but as soccer fever rages over the next weeks, from time to time music and musicians from countries with teams at the World Cup matches in South Africa will come in for comment to add to your enjoyment of the sport.


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Saturday Sessions: Brian Finnegan on writing tunes

Brian Finnegan, from County Armagh, has played flutes and whistles with the group Flook, toured with William Coulter, and fronted his own ensemble. He talks about writing tunes:

“It comes and goes in waves as I guess it does for a lot of people,” he said. “I’ll write a huge amount for a couple of weeks or a couple of months, completely haunted by it and waking up at three in the morning, writing jigs and reels and waltzes and strange time signatures that come out of my ears, but after a while the creative well runs a bit dry, and then I can’t think of anything.

“A lot of my tunes are written when I’m out walking,” he says. “If I sit down in a room I find it very hard to write to order, but a lot of stuff will come out when I don’t have a flute, I’ll just start hearing things in my head. I have to be relaxed and just let it flow that way.”

This part of an ongoing series here at Music Road called Saturday Sessions, about teaching, learning, and creating music. Join us again for ideas from Eddi Reader, Gretchen Peters, Matt Heaton, and others.

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Brian's music on Bandcamp

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