Symphony Nova Scotia and Natalie MacMaster: a celebration of Cape Breton music and more

Symphony Nova Scotia is marking its 40th anniversary this 2023/2024 season.

As part of the celebration, they have invited longtime friend Cape Breton fiddle player and composer Natalie MacMaster back for two concerts in Halifax in late September to open the autumn schedule.

Perhaps you might associate Symphony Nova Scotia with classical music -- and rightly so, they’ll close the season in May with music director Holly Mathieson conducting Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, for example-- but the talented musicians of the symphony regularly venture into other repertoire, especially from artists and sorts of music which make up the many strands of Nova’s Scotia’s heritage abd present day ranging from Afro-Cuban to jazz to the sounds oc Cape Breton.

Natalie MacMaster knows those Cape Breton sounds well; she grew up in Cape Breton, step dancing to the music early on and taking up the fiddle at age nine. She released her first album when she was sixteen, and has been recognized with Grammys and many other awards.

“ I heard my uncles play, I heard my aunts sing, I heard my cousins play,” MacMaster said. ” I come from a big family, a musical family. It was part of life.”

Those sounds of Cape Breton music, which can range from fiery to gentle, draw on the music which people from Scotland brought with them across the waters. That is the heart of the music MacMaster makes, but like the musicians of Symphony Nova Scotia. she enjoys taking that musical perspective into conversation with other sorts of music.

One place that is evident is in MacMaster’s most recent album Canvas, a duo project with her husband Donnell Leahy. Over the years the two have worked out ways to bring her Cape Breton style and his fiddle playing from Ontario into creative collaboration; this is their third album together.

With unexpected time away from their busy touring schedules during the pandemic they let the music lead them into tunes which are rgounded in their distinctive creative styles, while exploring music which includes flavors of jazz, the music of Ireland, Scottish Gaelic song, bluegrass, and classical cello among others. Several pieces from Canvas will be part of MacMaster’s concerts with Symphony Nova Scotia, along with others from across her repertoire.

What is it like for an artist from a folk tradition to work with an orchestra? “There are charts -- I work with a great arranger, Becca Pellett -- lots of charts,” MacMaster said.

It’s the work of an arranger to plan ways the different artists, instruments, and sections of musicians in an orchestra frame and support a guest musicians’s work. Charts communicate this.

The physical experience is a bit different too “It’s different, being out in front of the musicians and communicating with them through the conductor, instead of how I do with my band on tour on when I go back home to Cape Breton to play a square dance. It’s a whole different way of communicating, a whole different way of organization.”

MacMaster has often worked with orchestras in her career. When she returns to Halifax to appear with Symphony Nova Scotia, it holds an additional resonace, though.

“Symphony Nova Scotia was the very first orchestra I’d ever played with,” she recalled. “ I was in my early twenties at the time. I’d never even been to a symphony performance before and when I was invited to do that I was invited to do that I thought: I have arrived!” she said, laughing.

Scott Macmillan will conduct Symphony Nova Scotia for MacMaster’s shows. He was the conductor and arranger for those first concerts as well. “In 1995, the Symphony, Natalie, and I shared music across Nova Scotia on a fantastic tour,” Macmillan said. “We’re going to pick up right were we left off!”

For two evenings at the beginning of Symphony Nova Scotia’s 40th anniversary season and with MacMaster’s return to join them, excitement and expectation will be high on all sides, and it’s sure to be a fine pair of evenings for those on stage and those who come to listen.

At this writing tickets are still available. The concerts take place on 28 and 29 September.

You may also wish to see

Symphony Nova Scotia’s website where you may find information about schedules, tickets, the symphony’s musicians, and a 40th anniversary book for which MacMaster wrote a forward. You may also explore video recordings of small ensembles of symphony musicians supporting guest artists made during the pandemic.

Natalie MacMaster’s website where you will find information about her tour schedule including her upcoming family Christmas tour, and all her recordings. For one of those tour dates, Natlaaie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy are set to take part in the closing concert of the Celtic Colours International Festival in October; no guarantees, but there’s a good chance that concert will be livestreamed.

Natalie MacMaster’s album Sketches
Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy: One
Leahy Live in Gatineau
Cape BretonMusic: essentials for exploring
Nicola Benedetti: Homecoming: Scottish classical violinist bridges classical and folk genres with collaboration from Scotland musicians Julie Fowlis, Duncan Chisholm, and others

Photograph of Symphony Nova Scotia courtesy of the Symphony; photographs of Natalie Macmaster by Rebekah Littlejohn

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Celtic Colours: Community beyond Geography

Home: that is a theme that has run through the more than two decades that people have been celebrating the Celtic Colours International Festival in Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia.

That celebration is carried through music, both the unique Cape Breton style that arises from meetings of culture, and connections to those places and histories which have found home on Cape Breton. Scotland is a very strong presence -- Cape Breton is one of the few places outside the Highlands and Islands of Scotland where you may encounter Gaelic as an everyday language.

The Mi’maq First Nations were already on the island before the first Scots set foot, and they continue to share their lives with those whose ancestors came from Ireland, France, New England, and other parts of Canada and the world.

For most of its 25 year history, the Celtic Colours International Festival has celebrated across the island with music at its heart, alongside events including farmers’ markets, community meals, workshops, storytelling, nature walks, and many other events. In 2020 for health and safety reasons, the decision was taken to move the festival online.

That will also be true this year in 2021. It’s once again Celtic Colours at Home.

“I will never forget the generosity of the artists and cheerleaders from the community that were only positive and helpful when we let them all know we couldn’t do the festival as we would normally have done, “ festival artistic director Dawn Beaton remarked as staff adapted to planning how to move the festival online last year.

This year, they are building on what’s been learned. There will be live streamed concerts, along with a series of concerts recorded in venues across the island. These will include the century old Saint Peter’s Church in Ingonish, the chapel at Fortress Louisbourg, the Community Centre in Judique, and the Boisdale Volunteer Fire Department Hall. Those recorded concerts had small invited audiences of people who often volunteer during the festival, as a way to give back to both volunteers and artists.

Having been a television producer myself, I will point out, too, that the people of festival producing partners NovaStream, Sound Source Pro Audio + Lighting, and Soundpark Studio, who handle the audio, video, and recording for the events, really know how to present music in a way that creates and sustains community. They have been live streaming one concert from the festival each evening since 2011, and they’ve well met the increased demands of presenting nine days of music.

In addition to the evening concerts and the matinees, there will be a late night concert one evening, in a nod to the ever popular after hours festival club tradition. The pre show broadcasts at the evening concerts, an unexpected hit of 2020, return also. These are conversations between Dawn Beaton and her sister Margie, both top class musicians as well as professionals working in the Cape Breton arts community, Dawn at Celtic Colours and Margie at The Gaelic College.

“The Pre-show was an unexpected surprise for us both,” Dawn says  “I give full credit to NovaStream for the idea.  They saw the value of being in one spot for all nine days, and creating a spot to nestle in to before the show began.  We have a few ideas on what we will present this year, but you’ll have to tune in to find out!” Conversation about the concerts, musical traditions, and places on Cape Breton, laced with lively humour and the appearance of occasional special guests informed last year’s shows, so it will be interesting to see what the sisters have in store this time out.

All that said, this will not be quite the twenty fifth anniversary celebration anyone at Celtic Colours had anticipated.

“Like last year, it was about adapting to the changing landscape at every turn.  It was about continuing to present and employ artists, that was my priority,” Dawn Beaton says. “As a staff, we have been discussing ideas for the 25th for a few years now, so like 2020 when I was well on my way to programming, it was about letting go of those plans.  Hopefully I can come back to some of those show concepts, but right now it’s about doing the best we can with the hurdles ahead of us.”

All this may prove to have unexpected benefits, though. People who could not ever attend the festival in person will be able to see rising stars and well known artists from Cape Breton as well as guest artists from other parts of Nova Scotia, the US, Scotland, Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland, Manitoba, and Prince Edward island.

Audiences from time zones around the world can join in, and people who are unacquainted with the music of Cape Breton and those places the guest artists represent will be able to explore the music and along the way learn a bit about Cape Breton as well.

There are 18 concerts over nine days. Once a concert has aired, it will be available to watch through the end of October at the festival’s website and through its YouTube channel and Facebook page.

Events I am especially looking forward to include

Festival founders Joella Foulds and Max MacDonald will return for the opening concert, where they will be joined by percussive dancer Nic Gareiss, a former artist in residence at the festival, alongside banjo player Allison de Groot. Coming in by video from Scotland will be the band Capercaillie, who played at the first Celtic Colours and are world renown for their work in both English and Gaelic song as well for as their tunes.

Rosie MacKenzie on fiddle, Margie Beaton on piano, and Patrick Gillis on guitar will make for a lively matinee from Riverdale Community Centre in Lower River Inhabitants. They will be joined by multi-instrumentalist and singer Dècota McNamara along with fiddler Jeremy Finney.

The Chapel at Fortress Louisbourg will be the atmospheric site for another afternoon performance, as Delores Boudreau brings Acadian songs and the trio Papilio adds a mix of Celtic and international instrumentals, original compositions, and folk songs.

Close to the Floor will be an evening where connections between music and dance take the spotlight. Mac Morin, Harvey Beaton, Melody Cameron, Dawn and Margie Beaton, Jenny MacKenzie, and a roster more of players and dancers will be on hand.

There are many more events and artists to enjoy at the Celtic Colours international Festival this year,day and evening and afterwards. Note, if you plan to watch live, Cape Breton is in Atlantic Time, which is how the times are listed at the web site.

Thinking about the festival’s online situation, artistic director Dawn Beaton reflects

“Our priority was protecting all artists, staff, and technicians and I think that was the right approach [last year].That said, our online audience was incredible and didn’t feel too far away. They came through in a magnificent way and made those nine days fly by.  We still have folks coming up to us almost a year later speaking to the event and what it meant to them.”

Will you be part of the online audience for the Celtic Colours International festival this year?

Festival photographs by Corey katz; phootograph of Dawn Beaton by Ryan MacDonald

Celtic Colours at Home is presented by TD Bank Group, with the support of ACOA, Canadian Heritage, the Province of Nova Scotia, and its many other partners

You may also wish to see
Capercaillie’s album At The Heart of It All
Celtic Colours at Home 2020
A tune from Dawn and Margie Beaton is part of this story Geography of Inspiration Music and Place, at Wandering Educators
want to learn a Gaelic song yourself? Here is a place to begin.

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Canada's music: Sketches from Natalie MacMaster

Natalie MacMaster remembers when she came to hold her first fiddle.

"My grand uncle, Charlie MacMaster, who lived in Boston, sent a three quarter sized fiddle to our family -- not just my immediate family, our whole extended family -- sent it up to Cape Breton and said any of the kids who want to play this instrument can keep it,” she recalls. “There were a couple of other people who looked at it. I remember Dad taking me to see the fiddle and I just fell in love with it. Nobody else wanted it, so I took it, and that night, I started playing." She was nine.

That falling in love with the fiddle has lasted.

Exploring and sharing that love have led her to become one of Canada’s most well known and well loved musicians, and equally well known and respected for sharing the unique music of Cape Breton Canada around the world. She’s received many awards, nominations, and other recognitions, among them a Grammy award and nomination, a Juno award along with seven nominations, numerous East Coast music awards, three honorary doctorates, and induction as a member of the Order of Canada.

All of which she appreciates, but it is the making of music, the music she grew up with which can be fiery, bright, and fast paced as well as haunting and gentle, that is at the heart of what Natalie MacMaster does.

It is at the heart of her album Sketches, too.

It had been a while since MacMaster had made a solo album -- not that she hadn’t been making music, having done two albums with her husband and fellow fiddle player Donnell Leahy, continued to tour across Canada and beyond, worked on founding the Greenbridge Music Festival near their home in Ontario, begun a couple of book projects, and worked on ideas for a concert with an orchestra -- not to mention working on home schooling the couple’s seven children. In the midst of all that, in the winter of 2019, she knew it was time for another project.

While preparing the duo album with Donnell, she and guitarist Tim Edey did some jamming together.They had not worked together before. MacMaster loved it/ “I said to him ‘We are absolutely going to record something that sounds just like this!’” she recalls.

t’s a fine pairing of talents. From the blast of reels which opens the recording, a tune each from Jerry Holland, Martin Mulhaire, and MacMaster herself, to the gentle Professor Blackie from James Scott Skinner on through reels, barn dances, strathspeys, jigs, a set of tunes to honor the dance, and a nod to Bonnie Raitt with the melody of I can’t Make You Love Me, it’s a good journey with many a twist and turn.

Joining Edey in support of her vision, Marc Rogers adds tasteful touches of standup bass, while on selected tracks Mike McGoldrick joins on flute, Stuart Cameron on 12 string guitar, Frank Evans on 5 string banjo, Remi Arsenault on bass guitar, and Mark Kelso on percussion.

MacMaster has a lot to say through her fiddle and she says it well, speaking clearly of the lively community, the changing seasons on the landscape, the tradition of dance, those who’ve passed the traditions of Cape Breton on to her, and her own creative take on all these things.

It is her playing and vision which center the recording. All the tracks are well worth repeated listenings.

One of my favourites is the Killiekrankie set, with the quiet namesake tune followed by a blast of faster tunes. Of the set MacMaster writes: “The first tune is one of my top picks of favourite fiddle tunes ever! Not sure why it didn’t make it on any of my previous recordings but I am delighted it’s here. Following are a typical blast of Cape Breton strathspeys and reels.”

Cape Breton music draws deeply from the well of the musics of Scotland which early settlers brought with them across the seas. It is also a music rooted in landscape and grounded in community in this place in Atlantic Canada where sea meets forest meet sky.

“No other music makes me feel the way this music does,” MacMaster said. “ I’m not talking about my own music, but the music of those who came before me, and of my peers. It lifts me up and makes me want to get up and dance, and it soothes my soul. It gives me pure peace.”

Those are qualities Natalie MacMaster well knows how to share with her listeners.

While preparing for the release of Sketches, eight years on since she had recorded her last solo album, she reflected that it was a time she wanted to mark. “This is a moment during my 47th year of life, my 37th year of fiddling, my16th year of marriage, and my 13th year of parenting,” she said. “It’ll be a moment of joyous appreciation inspired by years of parenting, marriage,friendships, music, and life.”

Give a listen to Sketches, and share those moments with Natalie MacMaster and her music.

Also to note: MacMaster, Leahy, and their children are taking their popular Christmas concert online this season, supporting a number of venues where they have often played in person. Look to their website for details on dates and tickets.

You may also wish to see
Tim Edey: Christmas music on guitar
Natalie MacMaster and Donell Leahy: One
Leahy Live in Gatineau dvd
Alasdair Fraser, Natalie Haas, Hanneke Cassel: Travels in Music on Fiddle and Cello

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Celtic Colours At Home: Connecting across landscapes, culture, and time

Celtic Colours: for twenty three years now this international festival has been celebrating culture, landscape, and above all music on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia in Atlantic Canada.

Warmth, welcome, music, and community spirit will all be part of the festival’s twenty fourth year 9 through 17 October. Things will be a bit different, though. You will be able to experience its unique atmosphere and offerings in your own home, through online events. This is Celtic Colours at Home.

Challenges: moving the festival online

Though it was not an easy decision to move on line -- and for logistics alone it was a decision which had to be made many months in advance of the the festival’s mid-October dates -- Celtic Colours had several things going for it in the transition.

Artistic Director Dawn Beaton has the responsibility of programming the festival. Celtic Colours usually presents more than fifty official concerts over its nine day span, and there are dozens of events including meals, ceilidhs, art exhbits, and more offered by community partners as well.

“Many factors were unknown,” Beaton said, “so I tried to approach the programming with the possibility that things could shut down again entirely, given October marshals the way for the traditional flu season. Even within family bands, if they were spread out over three or more households, back in March, that would have been impossible to present them on stage...For much of it, it was important to look at family clusters, duos or trios that would easily be accommodated on stage, to allow for physical distancing. Had things shut down, I felt confident we could still deliver the music as planned through other means.”

In addition to a strong presence of artists from Cape Breton, Celtic Colours always features artists from across Nova Scotia and the other Maritime provinces. Artists from elsewhere in Canada, along with overseas artists from Ireland, Scotland, and other places whose traditions have influenced music and culture on Cape Breton are integral parts of Celtic Colours as well.

It was important to keep this international aspect of the festival going, Beaton knew, in whatever ways they could figure out to do it.  “In the end, it came down to the artists, and to community,” she said. Respect for Beaton, who is herself a top class fiddle player and step dancer in addition to her admin roles with Celtic Colours, no doubt played a part too. “Sometimes the plans didn't work out,” she pointed out, “but we have such a great group of artists who love the festival and wanted to do whatever they could to make it happen.”

There were many factors at work as festival staff adjusted to the idea of an entirely online event. “What was in our favour was the fact that we as the festival had been doing live-streaming [of one concert of the six or more presented every night] since 2011, so we knew we could continue in that capacity,” Beaton said. “We looked at a number of options; could we still travel around the island? Could we have an in-house audience? If not, would we need a paywall for the sake of the performances? Much was discussed and many things had to be ascertained in terms of government aid to see if we could proceed. When I look back at March and April, there was just so much uncertainty in what would be, come October,” she continued.

Collaboration and connection

Uncertainty, yes, but there were some things that were clear, both in vision and and practicalities. “We wanted the look and feel of our online presence to match prior years.  That meant hiring a venue we've used in past years for the [in person] online portion, one we knew had strong internet and a stage capacity to give us the room for proper physical distancing, both on and off the stage. That came in the form of the Membertou Trade and Convention Centre, and it meant supporting our industry as well.”

As well as more than fifty concerts all across the island offered in person in past years, non profit groups and organizations and businesses offer community meals, walks, talks, informal music sessions, art exhibits, farmers’ markets, and other events. “We knew we weren't going to sell in-house tickets to any of the shows, so it meant fewer folks on the ground, putting our Community Cultural Experiences in jeopardy. It was also important for them to feel safe and stay healthy. That was first and foremost in all of our thoughts and actions, so for all of those reasons, we couldn't incorporate those wonderful experiences into the festival this year. And that was another tough blow,” Beaton said, “as economically, having our festival patrons here helps to bring revenue to these not-for-profits as well.”

Festival staff worked out a way to include some of this, though.“This will be an area we ensure comes back of course, but until then, we wanted to highlight a few of those great partners and approach this year as a chance to tell some of the stories of the island and what we love about it.  Each night of the festival, our Outreach Coordinator, Yvette Rogers, takes us around the island to focus on a different region and speak to the history, the scenery and of course the people,” Beaton said.

Music at the heart

As with the in person festival, music remains at the heart of the online event.

So who are some of those artists you may hear at Celtic Colours at Home?

Internationally renown Gaelic singer Mary Jane Lamond is a longtime Celtic Colours favourite. Emma Stevens, who is still finishing up her high school course on Cape Breton, was a hit at last year’s celebration as she sang Blackbird in her native Mik’maq language, trading verses with Julie Fowlis from Scotland, who sang in Scottish Gaelic.

Piano and fiddle combinations are characteristic of Cape Breton music, whether other instruments are included or not. Hilda Chiasson is one of the most creative and in demand of Cape Breton pianists. She will be show up playing with a range of artists across Celtic Colours concerts.

This year’s Artists in Residence each have a long history with the Festival. Fiddle player Troy MacGillivray, is from Antigonish County, Nova Scotia, and flute player and singer Nuala Kennedy, is originally from County Louth and now living in Ennis in Ireland. They have enjoyed performing together before, and word comes that they have been planning out surprises for this online event, when Nuala will join in remotely from her home in Ireland and Troy will be onstage in Cape Breton. Troy will be joined by siblings Kendra and Sabra MacGillivray, while Nuala’s performances will include Tara Breen on fiddle, Tony Byrne on guitar, and dancer Siobhán Butler.

Guitarist Kaia Kater will join in remotely too, from Ontario. She will be bringing her creative musical ideas which fuse and blend Caribbean, Appalachian, and Canadian elements.

Beolach, a group whose core members are Mairi Rankin, Mac Morin, and Wendy MacIsaac, brings deep knowledge and love of Cape Breton music as well as its heritage in the musics of Scotland and Ireland. Last year they shared Artist in Residence honours with the band Breabach, from Scotland.

You may also recall the members of Beolach becoming part of The Unusual Suspects of Cape Breton, a Celtic big band project led by Corrina Hewat and Dave Milligan. No big band this season, but Hewat and Milligan will be joining in with their own music from their home in Scotland.

Innovative Cape Breton fiddle player Ashley MacIsaac will be part of the opening concert, and he’ll be a part of a continuing Celtic Colours tradition of including up and coming artists, as he shares the stage with We’koma’q First Nation fiddler Morgan Toney, Mary Beth Carty, and Stoney Bear Singers from Eskasoni First Nations for a cross cultural collaboration.

Scottish, Irish, Manx, First Nations, and Acadian music will all form part of the festival as musicians make their ways through concerts called, among others, Right at Home, Bell without a Tongue, and Through the Generations. Things will conclude on the final night with a concert featuring French Canadian band Vishten and along with long time festival favourites The Barra MacNeills, who created and channel Cape Breton and Scottish music in English and in Gaelic. This concert is called The Bright Side. If you’re up for it, an after hours festival club will close out the last night of Celtic Colours at Home.

Celtic Colours at Home: connecting across miles, culture, and time There will not be listeners in person in seats this season, but there will nevertheless be community and connection.

“It's showing others, be it folks that always came to our live performances, or new folks that have never ever heard of the Celtic Colours International Festival what Cape Breton is all about, what shared ancestry we have, and to celebrate the differences amongst us too,” Artistic Director Dawn Beaton reflected. “I hope folks will celebrate great music and camaraderie and maybe find new favourites this year.  And as always to show the importance of culture, as a means of inclusion, never to divide us.”

Celtic Colours at Home: adapting to different circumstances, it it remains a celebration of connection, community, and music in the unique place that is Cape Breton.

Photograph of Dawn Beaton by Ryan MacDonald. Photograph of The Barra MacNeills courtesy of the artists. Other artists photographs (Anna Massie and Kristan Harvey, Cathy Peterson and Mary Jane Lamond, Julie Fowlis and Emma Sweeney, Wendy MacIsaac and Mac Morin, Corrina Hewat) by Corey Katz, courtesy of the Celtic Colours International Festival

There will be one concert on each of nine evenings, 9 through 17 October. On the two Saturdays in this span, there will be a second concert, honoring the Celtic Colours tradition of late night festival club celebrations. Some artists will be on stage and others will join in virtually. The concerts are produced in partnership with NovaStream and Soundpark Studios. Celtic Colours at Home is presented by TD Bank Group, with the support of ACOA, Canadian Heritage, the Province of Nova Scotia, and its many other partners. For information on this year's Festival, artists and the schedule, visit the festival’s web site at https://celtic-colours.com

You may also wish to see
A look back at Celtic Colours 2017
At Wandering Educators, Geography of Inspiration: Music and Place includes music from Dawn Beaton and her sister Margie
At Perceptive Travel, Exploring Cape Breton Island through Celtic Colours
Another musical collaboration which may be of interest: The Lost Words: Spell Songs

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Ireland's Music: Thar Toinn/ Seaborne from Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh

The sea, especially the sea in the west of Ireland, has always been part of Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh’s life. So has Gaelic. Music has, as well. It is natural, then then that she should bring these things together in her six song project Thar Toinn/Seaborne.

Nic Amhlaoibh plays flutes and whistles, and sings. Those are talents she often put to use in her thirteen years as lead singer with the top traditional band Danu, and in collaboration with other artists as well. She has traveled the world with her music. but it is to west Kerry, to the Dingle peninsula, that she returned to build her own career as a solo artist, and to raise her family.

For all that it is somewhat shorter than a full album, Nic Amhlaoibh makes the most of that concentrated form. There are stories told in Irish and in English, as well as one in Scottish Gaelic, with narratives drawn from truth, legend, and maybe a bit of both. The arrangements serve to enhance Nic Amhlaoibh’s choices in how she presents the lyrics. She has one of the best voices around, and that’s illuminated with a musical and poetic intelligence which makes her performances last well beyond first hearing. All that is present as part of what’s going on here.

One of Nic Amhloaibh’s gifts is saying much by saying little, in both story and style. That holds true whether she is telling a story of a faithless lover in Blackwaterside, venturing into Scottish Gaelic to sing a Cape Breton song of a woman whose sweetheart is lost on the sea, offering a west Kerry song wishing good luck and safe home to fisher folk, or telling a story of looking back at a well loved place in Ireland which may have been written by a man who survived the sinking of the Titanic.

Nic Amhlaoibh bookends these pieces with a song written by a friend who was both poet and boatman, and a song which may have come across the water from the singing of fairies.

The opener to Thar Toinn is Faoiseamh Faoistine, with words written by Danny Sheehy and music from Gerry O’Beirne. The song urges and encourages the listener to connect with land and sea. As Nic Amhlaoibh writes in her sleeve notes, Sheehy’s words also encourage listener to seek solace there.

Many years ago, a fisherman from the Blasket Islands heard the music of Port Na Bpucai one night while out on the sea. Perhaps it was wind, perhaps whale song, but then again, those fairies... it is after all a story fo a woman taken across the sea by fairies. It is also the song from which the title of the album comes.

For this arrangement of Port Na Bpucai Nic Amhlaoibh is joined by Billy Mag Fhlionn, who plays the Yaybahar, an acoustic instrument with which adds an otherworldly sound fitting for the song’s story. Mag Fhlionn built the Yaybahar himself after a concept by Gorkem Sen.

Others join in to support Nic Amhlaoibh through the album, too. Scottish singer Julie Fowlis adds her voice to the Cape Breton song,. Among others who sit in are Donal O’Connor, Gerry O’Beirne, Niamh Varian-Berry, and Donogh Hennessy.

It is, however, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh’s voice, vision, and connection with the waters which center Thar Toinn/Seaborne. It is a gathering of songs which invite repeated listening to explore the many facets of that vision and connection.

You may also wish to see
Seeing Ireland: 3 Music videos
Foxglove and Fuschia, another album from Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh
About the album Buan from Danu
About the album Alterum from Julie Fowlis.

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Celtic Colours Festival: Heritage and Heart on Cape Breton

On Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, there are times when music seems to rise out of the landscape. One of those times occurs every October during the Celtic Colours International Festival, when the people of Cape Breton invite the world -- including tradition bearers from cultures which have shaped the island’s life -- home for celebration and sharing.

This year, Celtic Colours takes place from 11 through 19 October. Music is at the heart of things; music is woven into the fabric of life on the island. In addition to headline concerts, of which there are a generous number each day, there are many other things explore, see, create, taste, and enjoy. More about those in a bit. First, though, a few highlights of what to expect with the music (and read on to learn how you may hear some of the concerts even if you will not be making it to Cape Breton during the festival).

Beolach and Brebach are artists in residence this year. Often those posts are held by solo artists, but the two bands, Beolach, who are Mac Morin, Wendy MacIsaac, Mairi Rankin, and Matt MacIsaac from Cape Breton and Breabach, who are James Lindsay, James Duncan Mackenzie, Ewan Robertson, Calum MacCrimmon, and Megan Henderson from Scotland, have been talking about working together for some time, and shared the stage for a Celtic Colours gig last year.

Each band has pipers and fiddle players, members of both have been known to step dance, and there are other instruments and singers in both Gaelic and English involved. When Beolach was in Scotland this summer for the Piping Live Festival, the musicians got together to plan what they’ll do in their concerts Kicking Ash and Causeway Ceilidh. The latter is the festival’s finale, where they will share the stage with top Gaelic singer Julie Fowils, who will be making her only appearance at the festival.

The First Nations Mi’kmaq people have long history on Cape Breton, and love fiddling and dance as much as their Acadian and Gaelic neighbors. One way this will come together is at Unama’ki Mawio’mi/A Cape Breton Gathering, where local Mi’kmaq group Stoney Bear will sharing singing, dancing, and drumming, and rising Mi’kmaq singer Emma Stevens will raise her voice. Cape Breton fiddlers Mooney Francis and Anita MacDonald will add in a Celtic flair, and the Ivan Flett Memorial Dancers will bring their Metis dancing to what sure to be a lively afternoon concert.

Another lively time is sure to be had when Kaia Kater brings her soulful songwriting, Appalachian ballads, and high energy banjo playing to the Cow Bay Ceildih, where she’ll be joined the very high energy Scottish trio Talisk and hometown favorites Tracey Dares MacNeil, Patrick Gillis, and Ian MacDougall.

Another sort of energy will pervade the stage at Close to the Floor. That’s a term often used to explain the style of Cape Breton step dance. There will be a dozen or so artists with dance steps from Cape Breton and other regions to share, among them festival favourite Nic Gareiss and top fiddle player, dancer, and singer April Verch.

Fiddler Jenna Moynihan and harpist Mairi Chaimbeul come up from New England to make several appearances during the festival. One of the more unusual will be their gig at the Chapel at the Fortress of Louisbourg. The concert is called Step into the Past. Audience members will have done that, as they’ll have enjoyed a traditional 18th century meal served by candle light and have walked through cobbled, lantern lit streets of the Fortress to reach the chapel. Joining Moynihan and Chaimbeul on stage will be Cape Bretoners Rosie MacKenzie on guitar and Dominique Dodge on harp, and from Scotland, Megan Henderson on fiddle and guitarist Ewan Robertson, who are also members of the band Breabach. There are fine singers in this mix as well as gifted players.

As much as the concert at Fortress Louisbourg is unique, it also shares aspects with many of the headline concerts. Several acts share each bill. Each usually does a set on alone (although sometimes the musicians cannot resist sitting in with each other) and then all join in together to close the show. It is a format that makes for collaboration, sharing, and discovery.

Those elements will be present when the Cape Breton Orchestra meets up with artists in residence Beolach and with Heather Rankin, who is known for her own stellar solo career as well as being a member of one of Cape Breton’s well loved musical families.

There’s always a strong strand of Gaelic running through Celtic Colours; you’ll find it almost every concert. The quartet Farsan, who bring together music and language traditions of Cape Breton, New England, and Scotland, will join forces with Saltfishforty from Orkney and Dwayne Cote and Roger Stone from Cape Breton in a gig called Family and Friends. Farsan will also take part in a Gaelic focused concert called The Waters of Iona, at the church at the Highland Village.

There are many other artists sharing their gifts in the fifty-two concerts which make up this season’s Celtic Colours Festival. Mary Jane Lamond, Joe MacMaster, KIttel & Co., Howie MacDonald, Tim Edey, JP Cormier, Dawn Beaton, Margie Beaton, Ashley MacIsaac, The Chieftains, and The Barra MacNeills, are just a few of these.

The music at the festival club at the Gaelic College in Saint Ann’s begins just as the evening concerts are winding down, and often goes through the night. Artist bookings are not announced in advance, so you never know who you might see.

The music is not all: there are 300 community events taking place all across the island.

You could learn to step dance, or take your partner to a square dance. You could begin on or brush up your fiddle skills, watch a traditional blacksmith at work, or explore the landscape of Cape Breton on a nature walk.

You could try your hand at traditional fibre crafts and dyes, visit an art exhibit, go to a farmers’ market, or explore one of the island’s historic churches. The First Nations peoples of the island are ready to share their stories, hospitality, and history with you, and so are people from Acadian, Scottish, and Irish background.

One of the ways that happens is through community meals, which range from egg and bacon breakfasts to fishcakes and beans to squash soup to lobster, from tea and stories in the afternoon to turkey and all the fixings in the evening.

Chances are, those community meals will come with a side of music, or be located nearby a concert. Music is part of the community sharing on Cape Breton. The Celtic Colours International festival is one of the best ways to experience that.

If you’ll not be on Cape Breton for the festival, keep your eye out on the festival web site. Usually, one concert each evening is shown on live stream. It is not announced what concert it will be until an hour or so before start time, but you’ll not go wrong with whatever is offered. Each concert is most often left up through the next day until almost time for the next evening’s event to begin.

You may also wish to see
Breabach: Frenzy of the Meeting
Alterum, from Julie Fowlis
Learn a bit more about Farsan
Learn about how and when Thanksgiving is celebrated in Canada
Ireland, Scotland, and Story: Music from Eamon Doorley Julie Fowlis, Zoe Conway, and John McIntyre

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Celtic Colours on Cape Breton

Cape Breton is a fascinating place to explore at any time of year. When autumn landscape, community welcome, and generous sharing of the strands of music which weave though life in this island in Atlantic Canada come together each October at the Celtic Colours International Festival, it’s really time to be on Cape Breton.

This year, 2017, the festival runs from 6 through 14 October as it marks its twenty first season of concerts, workshops, community meals, and cultural experiences all across the island. Visiting artists from Scotland, Ireland, the United States and many parts of Canada will inform the music this year. There’s a special emphasis on Canada’s artists this year as Celtic Colours joins in celebrations across Canada marking the150th anniversary of Confederation.

People were coming to this island in the far north of what would become known as Nova Scotia long before 150 years ago, however. They were making music then, too.

The fiddle is one of the most portable of instruments. When people were driven from their homes in the Highlands and Island of Scotland by landlords who thought livestock would bring better profit than farms, often there was little they could take along. The music and dances in their memories and in their hearts survived, and in many cases, so did their fiddles. Those memories and those fiddles became the basis of their music in the new world.

As much as that music and dance carried on the traditions of Scotland, new elements had their influences. Back in Scotland, music and dance continued to evolve, too. One place where all this comes together in the 21st century is at the Celtic Colours Festival.

The theme of Celtic Colours this year is Roots. It’s an idea which encompasses both the depth of connection and community which make up the island’s cultures and the need to nurture and connect and evolve what is now and what’s to come. This is all present in the music which anchors the festival, and is marked in varied ways in the sharing of arts, crafts, community meals, and other events.

A few things you may expect at Celtic Colours this year:

We Walk As One: the Grand Opening, is a concert which takes place in Sydney at Centre 2000, will feature artists from Scotland, Ireland, Nunavut, and from the Acadian and Scottish communities of Cape Breton. The trio of guitarist John Doyle, flute player and piper Michael McGoldrick, and fiddler John McCusker account for some of the Ireland and Scotland presence as they make their festival debut as a trio. Swing du Sutete brings dance from the Acadian tradition, while singer IVA from Nunavut makes her first appearance at the festival and Cape Breton group Coig returns. Fellow Cape Bretoner Heather Rankin, long known for work with her family band, makes her solo debut at the festival this night, while Cathy Ann McPhee and Patsy Seddon add in Scotland’s presence.

This sort of evening is a tradition at Celtic Colours: every concert -- and most nights there a half a dozen or so going on across the island -- includes several acts. Each plays a set and then they join for a finale. Each evening in this way serves as an ambassador for several sorts of music, and the connections among them.

Across the nine days of the festival, you will a fiddle summit, a gathering featuring First Nations artists, a performance which will take place in historic Fortress Louisbourg, and a tribute concert to John MacDougall, who composed 38,000 tunes. Most evenings offer performances from musicians of differing cultural stands, drawing on connections and contrasts so all may celebrate and learn.

Six songwriters from different parts of Canada will have been working for a week to write material for their concert Songs from Scratch. Gaelic song and Gaelic infused piping, fiddling, dance,and piano playing will fill Saint Matthew’s Church one afternoon in Inverness as Seudan, based in that other Inverness meet up with Cape Breton fiddlers Shelly Campbell and Andrea Beaton and others.

There might be a bluegrass and jazz tinge to things as Grammy winning banjo player and composer Alison Brown from the US joins top Cape Breton fiddle player Kimberley Fraser and Scotland’s Paul McKenna for the Cow Bay Ceilidh.

It’s sure to be an evening to remember when Boston based Scottish style fiddler and composer Hanneke Cassel and her band mates Mike Block on cello and guitarist Keith Murphy share the bill with dynamic African American roots based singer Rhiannon Giddens and Cajun/old time singer Dirk Powell -- and take note, Giddens and Powell are both ace banjo players, too. Ben Miller and Anita MacDonald will add Cape Breton pipe and fiddle tunes to the night as well.

The learning and sharing ad collaboration is not limited to each night’s featured concerts. There are workshops, master classes, and talks to do with music, of course, and you’d have many chances to take part as a players, dancer, or observer, in a ceilidh -- a party with music and dance. You’d have the chance to learn a few steps, too, or you could learn a bit of Gaelic, or perhaps how to hook a rug in the longstanding Acadian way, or try your hand at painting sea scene or learn about blacksmithing with a side of tunes and talk. You could go for a guided walk in the outdoors of Cape Breton autumn, take in art exhibits, create your won art as you try your hand a pumpkin carving, and visit farmer’s markets and craft shows.

If you are not quite ready to wind down after the main concerts each night, too, the always popular Festival Club at the Gaelic College at Saint Ann’s keeps things going until the small hours of the morning.

The people of Cape Breton are warm and welcoming, you’ll find, and very ready to talk and to listen as you participate in all these things. Another great time for Cape Breton conversation is over a meal. You’ll have good chance to do that: there are breakfasts, lunches, afternoon teas, and dinners a plenty. Seafood is a big deal on this island, and you will find ham, roast beef, turkey, Scottish and Acadian specialities, and plenty of veg and desserts on hand too. Groups across Cape Breton step up each year to prepare and host community meals.

The Grand Finale of the music concerts of this twenty first year of Celtic Colours will take place in Port Hawkesbury. Powerful singer and guitartist JP Cormier will bring in the Cape Breton presence. Imar, a high energy group formed of members from top Celtic nations bands, will likely blow the roof off the hall, but if they have not, then Rhiannon Giddens and Dirk Powell are quite powerful enough to do that all on their own. This year’s festival artists in residence, songwriters Buddy MacDonald and James Keelaghan, will no doubt have surprises to share, as will top irish American group Cherish the Ladies, who have been thrilling audiences across the world with the thoughtful and lively sides of Irish music for more than three decades.

This is just a taste of what’s in store across the nine days of this year’s Celtic Colours Festival. Even if you’ll not make it to Cape Breton for Celtic Colours this year, explore the festival’s website to learn about this vibrant place where, as the festival’s artistic director Dawn Beaton says “Music is a powerful force that feeds the soul.” Keep an eye on the Celtic Colours website too to learn if, as has been the case in past years, some of the festival’s concerts will be live streamed online.

One other thing: as part of the living legacy of the festival and to honor this special anniversary in the story of Canada, Celtic Colours will partner with Strathlorne Nursery in Inverness and community partners across the island to plant a maple tree for every ticket sold. Last year there were around 22,000 tickets purchased, so the spring of 2018 should see a big season of maple planting across Cape Breton!

Photographs of Michael McGoldrick, Alison Brown, Hanneke Cassel, Dirk Powell, Rhiannon Giddens, and Joanie Madden (of Cherish the Ladies) made with permission of the artists, by Kerry Dexter. Thank you for respecting copyright.

You may also wish to see
Canada’s music: Catherine MacLellan who will take part in the Songs from Scratch project
Celebrating Cape Breton’s Heritage and Connections though Music
Sounds of Cape Breton
Scottish Musicians Look at the Future of Our Past
Women of Ireland: Music
Reflections, Travel, Music: Music and its Power to Connect

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Celebrating Cape Breton's heritage and connections through music: Celtic Colours Live volume 4

Cape Breton lies in the far north of Nova Scotia, in Atlantic Canada. There are parts of the island which do not look lot like Scotland, and places where it looks very like. Places where it sounds like Scotland, too: Cape Breton is almost alone as a place outside Scotland where Scottish Gaelic is spoken. Spoken and sung, that is. When immigrants -- some seeking a better life, some fleeing political and economic strife, some driven from their homes-- came over from Scotland, they often brought with them few material goods. They did, however, bring their songs, their tunes, their dances, and their stories.

They found First Peoples tribes on Cape Breton, and across the years, as more people from Scotland came, so too came folk from Ireland, from the United States, from central Europe, from Scandinavia, from other parts of Canada. The heart of Scotland’s culture beat strongly through all this, sharing influences and being influenced by landscape, weather, and life on an island as well as crossing paths with people from these other backgrounds. So a unique culture emerged, connected to Scotland but different, one that could -- and still does -- celebrate the distinctions as much as the connections.

Every year in autumn the people of Cape Breton invite the world home to experience this. For nine days in October each year beginning just before Thanksgiving in Canada, concerts and cultural events are staged all across the island in communities large and small, in purpose built concert halls, churches of many faiths, school houses, fire halls, pubs, historic sites from one end of the island to the other. This is the Celtic Colours International Festival.

The music is both focused and diverse, There are tradition bearers from Cape Breton, and rising stars. There’s always good representation from the other provinces of Atlantic Canada, from Ireland, from the United States, from across the rest of Canada, and naturally from many parts of Scotland. Both tradition bearers and rising stars are part of these strands of music as well.

You may be reading this in summer and thinking: Why am I hearing about this now since it happens in October?

One reason is the recording Celtic Colours Live volume four. Through thirteen tracks recorded live as they happened in venues across the twentieth anniversary season of the festival in 2016, you will get a fine feeling for what the music of Celtic Colours is like.

In a concert from the Acadian part of the island in Belle Cote, Le Vent du Nord kicks things off with rousing Quebecois style. Fiddle tunes from Andrea Beaton and Liz Carroll hold a lively dialogue among Cape Breton, US, and Irish strands, from an event recorded at the Dangerous Duos concert in Mabou.

That Dangerous Duos concert, by the way, is a good taste of what Celtic Colours does so well -- not only do old friends get to meet up and play music together, but people who don’t usually play together join up. Scheduled or not, the results are always well worth the hearing. There are several other collaborations from the Dangerous Duos evening on Celtic Colours Live volume four.

Speaking of collaborations: the whole of The Unusual Suspects band could be seen as that. In Scotland, musicians Corrina Hewat and Dave Milligan had the idea of creating a folk orchestra, with players from the varied regions and traditions of the country. Not an easy task to pull off -- but they did it, and have kept it going for some time. They’ve brought it to Celtic Colours before, too, where they become The Unusual Suspects of Celtic Colours by adding top Canadian musicians to the mix, folk such as, in 2016, Wendy MacIsaac, Lisa MacNeil, and Daniel Lapp. Scottish and CB tunes made up the band’s Finale Set, which is what appears on record for this album. Not quite as high energy as being there, but almost.

There is plenty of high energy music on the recording, and at the festival itself. There are quieter times too, though, and these are well represented. Top Scottish storyteller in song Archie Fisher joins up with CB guitarist Cyril MacPhee for the Buddy MacDonald song We Remember You Well. Newfoundland trio The Once. who are Geraldine Hollett, Phil Churchill, and Andrew Dale, bring their original song Gonna Get Good. Scotland’s Dougie MacLean joins up with Canada by way of Scotland guitarist Tony MacManus for the song Talking With My Father -- listen out for that guitar on this track.

There’s more -- Gaelic song from students at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Irish fiddle from Liz Doherty, Americana and Canada meeting up in the work of April Verch and Joe Newberry, and of course Cape Breton music and artists through it all.

It is no easy task to make a live recording work. This one does on all counts, with the music, the hints of audience sound, the occasional tapping or step dancing feet, and the sense of presence in the venues. Congratulations to Jamie Foulds, who recorded, mixed, and mastered the tracks, and Declan O’ Doherty, who produced.

If you happen to be reading this in summer, you’ll want to know that the Celtic Colours Festival will be announcing the artist line ups near the end of June, and tickets will go on sale in mid July for the festival, which will take place in 2017 from 6 to 14 October. In addition to half a dozen or so concerts each evening of the festival, there are talks, workshops, art exhibits, farmers and craft markets, community meals, storytelling times, music sessions, ceilidhs, events for children... keep your eye out on the festival web site celtic-colours.com for information about all these things.

One other thing: For every ticket sold for the 2017 festival, there will be a maple tree planted on Cape Breton Island.

You may also wish to see
Scotland’s Music a Different Way: The Unusual Suspects.
Sounds of Cape Breton
Cape Breton Music: Remembering Raylene Rankin
Celebrating Canada and Newfoundland: The Once
Canada’s music: Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy
Tony McManus: The Maker’s Mark

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Katie McNally Trio: The Boston States

Across history, travelers and emigrants have carried fiddles with them. It’s one of the most portable and versatile of instruments. That is one of the reasons that people coming form Scotland to Atlantic Canada brought their fiddles and their music across the ocean. People from Nova Scotia and other parts of the Maritimes, heading south to New England in search for work, brought heir tunes and songs and dance steps and their fiddles along too.

It’s that legacy and connection across landscapes and communities in New England, Atlantic Canada, and Scotland that Katie McNally has chosen to honor in her album The Boston States. In Boston, McNally learned the fiddle with renown Scottish style fiddle player Hanneke Cassel, studied at Tufts University, and listened and played at sessions and dance halls where the musics of these landscapes met and mingled.

With her trio members Neil Pearlman on piano and Shanucey Ali on viola, McNally went to Cape Breton make the album, and enlisted top class Cape Breton fiddle player Wendy MacIsaac to produce the project.

The trio kicks things off with music from contemporary Cape Breton composers Dan R. MacDonald and John Morris Rankin. The tunes Colin McIntosh and Black Horse offer a lively introduction to McNally’s fiddle playing which proves to be at once strong and graceful,. The set also showcases the fine way Pearlman’s fast paced piano and Ali’s low notes on the viola combine with McNally’s lead to create a set that evokes fast flying dance steps while showing the musicianship is in good hands with all three members of the trio.

Each musician has varied strengths and musical backgrounds, which work well together across the ten tracks on the disc. Pearlman’s understanding of Cape Breton piano and the way that interacts with fiddle music is bone deep -- yet he also brings in subtle touches of his other interests and projects in Latin msuic and in jazz. Shauncey Ali studied classical music and moved into playing bluegrass. McNally, in addition to learning fiddle in Boston, studied ancient and modern Scottish Literature and Scottish traditional music at Glasgow University and The National Piping Centre in Glasgow.

The three musicians are thus well prepared to take on traditional music of Scotland -- although, as McNally points out in her notes, they often favor versions which came their way through the playing of Cape Breton musicians including Joe Cormier and Troy McGillivray. The trio’s gifts for bringing these ideas together are apparent in the set pairing the jig Scotty Fitzgerald from Cape Breton fiddler Sandy MacIntyre with the traditional tune The Hills of Glen Orchy.

Another good place to hear that at work is the track which joins Scottish composer Niel Gow’s strathspey The Fir Tree with a fast paced piece of McNally’s own composition, Batmoreel, which, does, yes, have a Batman connection which can learn of it the liner notes.

There are five more tunes by McNally herself on the album and one by Pearlman, which stand in good company with the tunes which they have chosen from the tradition. Many of the sets are lively music, but the trio does well with slower pieces also: listen out especially for the traditional tune Down the Burn Davie Lad.

Katie McNally’s family roots go back into Atlantic Canada and to Quebec, and her experiences encompass neighborhood dancehalls in Boston where Cape Breton and Scottish tunes ring out, as well as studying and teaching at fiddle camps across the United States, in Scotland, and elsewhere. As a player and as a composer she understands and respects how these strands come together. On The Boston States, McNally and musical partners Neil Pearlman and Shauncey Ali have created a collection of tunes that will set your feet dancing, and your spirit dancing as well.

You may also wish to see
Katie McNally: Flourish McNally’s debut album
Scotland's Music: Hanneke Cassel,The Paul McKenna Band, Alba's Edge
Hanneke Cassel: For Reasons Unseen
Sounds of Cape Breton: Wendy MacIsaac and Mary Jane Lamond
Katie McNally’s web site
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