O Come Emmanuel from Hanneke Cassel

O Come O Come Emmanuel is music for the season of Advent that goes back in time. Far back, that is: it is a latin hymn thought to have first been sung in the ninth century.

Star of Wonder is a tune recetly composed by New England based musician Hanneke Cassel.

Cassel pairs the two in a thoughtful and intriguing way to open ehr album on which you will find them recorded. She chose the title from that pairing, as well: the album is called. O come Emmanuel.

With this opener, Cassel sets the tone and begins the journey on which she takes her listeners through the music on the album.

She offers creative re-imagining of winter season classics alongside thoughtful original music in a journey that becomes both timely and timeless.

Hanneke Cassel’s instrument is the fiddle (she’s ace on piano too).

Among other things, she is the former US Scottish National Fiddle Champion.

She began studying music with Texas style Western swing. When her teacher challenged her to learn the music of Scotland, she did, but was a bit impatient with it.

When she won a chance to study on the Isle of Skye, though that changed. She set her course toward what would be a musical practice rooted and grounded in the music of Scotland and of its Canadian Celtic cousin, Cape Breton.

All that said, Cassel brings her own background and interests into her exploration and creation of Celtic music.

She grew up in Oregon and came east to study at Berklee College of Music in Boston, receiving a degree in violin performance, and these days. sometimes returning as a guest instructor. Though she’s brought her music across the US and across the world to places including China and Kenya, she remains based in New England.

On O come Emmanuel Hanneke does not sing herself. She does, however, invite in musical friends from differing points of the compass to add their voices to several of the tracks, and partners with them beautifully with her playing.

Musical friends joining in on instruments are Christopher Lewis, Keith Murphy, Yann Falquet, Mike Block, Jeremy Kittel, Jenna Moynihan, Casey Driessen, and Tim Downing. The really are musical friends, too: each of them have worked with Cassel in duo, trios, and other ensembles.

The music on O Come Emmanuel is a creative mix of song and tune, well known pieces and original music, all in the spirit of winter, Christmas, family , and friendship.

Tracks include See Amid the Winter Snow, O come All Ye Faithful, Dancing Among the Cloud, Eilidh’s Christmas Morning, and Silent Night withe verses sung in four languages with Hanneke’s fiddle taking a verse as well as backing the singers.

In her sleeve notes, Hanneke writes among her thanks a note to thank he mom and dad “for filling the house with Christmas music every year-- from Handel to Amy Grant to Mannheim Steamroller to Raffi to Emmylou Harros --one of my favorite parts of the season is getting outthat stack of CDs.”

Once you’ve listened to O Come Emmanuel from Hanneke Cassel. you’ll be adding this recording to your stack of well loved seasonal classics, as well.

You may also wish to see
Hanneke Cassel’s web site
I’ve introduced you to several of Hanneke’s earlier recordings. Here are stories of several:
Dot the Dragon's Eyes (and several albums from others to explore
Trip to Walden Pond

an earlier story about Hanneke's career, at Perceptive Travel
For Reasons Unseen

For a time Hanneke toured backing up Irish American singer Cathie Ryan. You can hear Hanneke’s work especially well on Ryan’s album The Farthest Wave.

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Christmas eve and the coming days: music as companion

Christmas eve, Christmas day, the days leading up to the turning of the year: they often make for a time of reflection.

All things happening in the world, alongside what challenges and changes may be arising with each of us in our personal circumstances, at times make the quiet and the mindset for such reflection seem hard to come by.

As you’ll know if you’ve been following my work here and in other publications I find music to be a gateway and a good companion to such reflection.

Two recordings to consider

If you may be looking for an especially lively and seasonal recording with singing you will want to join along with, then have a listen to Glad Christmas Comes. from Eliza Carthy and Jon Boden.

The English duo offer a mix of Victorian carols -- such as the title song-- and other favorites and originals. Even if you’ve not heard familiar song done quite the way they offer, or the songs are new to you, the creativity and energy of their singing will engage you.

Tracks to note: Shepherds Arise, Glad Christmas Comes

With her recording O Come Emmanuel Hanneke Cassel offers a more contemplative take on the season.

Cassel’s main instrurment is the fiddle, with which she draws on Scottish, Cape Breton, and Americana flavors to frame her interpretations and create her original music, For this album she has also invited along several of her musical friends to add their voices to different tracks, All the the music is well worth your listening, at the winter season and at other times.

Standout tracks: Silent Night, O Come Emmanuel/Star of Wonder

Wishing you a reflective, peaceful time, whatever way you may be marking this season.

You may also wish to see
Music for December: time for hope & reflection at Wandering Educators
Christmas Eve Reflections at Along the Music Road, my new newsltter at Substack
Another album from Hanneke Cassel
More Winter listening.

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perhaps you’d rather

Holiday gift ideas: 3 Albums for the Winter Season

Winter: it is a season of celebration and quiet, of gathering and solitude.

Music goes along with all of those things. One of the great things about music is that it may be enjoyed alone and in company.

With those thoughts in mind, here are further ideas of music for your holiday gft list, for yourself or others.

For the album A Fiddler’s Holiday, Jay Ungar, Molly Mason, Ruth Ungar, and Michael Merenda join up with the Orchestra of the University of Mary Washington in Virginia for a seasonal and holiday themed excursion.

There are songs quiet and fast paced, about a snowstorm, the harvest, a silent night in a famialr way snd as a two step, a Quebecois medley about children’s toys, Jay’s classic tune Ashokan Farewell, and more. If you or or someone you know is celebrating Chanukah, the song in this could be a great song for to share. If that holiday is not in your tradition or if the days of celebrating it are past when you read this, I think you will still enjoy this lively song.

The recording on which you will find it is called A Fiddler’s Holiday. There is a dvd available of the live concert, too.

Hanneke Cassel offers a reflective look at Advent and the winter season as she pairs O Come O Come Emmanuel with her original tune Star of Wonder.This is the title track from her new Christmas album O Come Emmanuel.

The music is a selection of original, traditional, and contemporary tunes and songs of faith and of the winter season, led by Hanneke’s fiddle, with contributions from musical friends including Christopher Lewis, Keith Murphy, Yann Falquet, Mike Block, Jeremy Kittel, Jenna Moynihan, Casey Driessen, and Tim Downing and selection of guest singers including Helene Blum, Luke Bulla, Jennifer KImball, and Aoife O’Donovan.

It is Cassel’s fiddle which illuminates each track, however whether leading tunes such as The Snow March or surrounding and supporting singers such as on a thoughtful and creative arrangement of Silent Night, with words sung in several languages.

Cassel is an award winning player, composer, and educator, a past US Scottish National Fiddle Champion who has taken her Celtic rooted music across the world. She is also a woman of strong faith. It’s been a longtime dream of hers to create a Christmas album. She felt this year was the right moment. Take a listen, takee several, in fact, to each of the ten tracks on O Come Emmanuel, to hear why she is right about that. Uplifting, reflective, creative, hopeful, O Come Emmanuel is a Christmas classic, and a fiddle classic, in the making.

April Verch and Joe Newberry decided this was the right year for a holiday album too, and they were alos right about that. Verch, who comes from the Ottawa Valley in the Canadian province of Ontario, and Newberry, who draws on Ozark and Appalachian roots, intertwine those musical sources to great effect on their album On This Christmas Day. Joe Newberry plays banjo, guitar, and fiddle; April Verch plays fiddle and stepdances. They both sing, and they both write songs. Most of the songs on this album are originals, in fact, joined by a few well chosen covers.

It might be a bit of a challenge to write a Christmas song, given all the seasonal music already in existence. It’s a challenge each artist meets well though, creating music that explores by turns the joy and mystery of the holiday season. Though they come from different geographic areas, both Joe and April grew up with Christmas traditions celebrating home and hearth, traditions they continue to celebrate and enjoy. For several years they’ve been doing holiday season tours together. On This Christmas Day is the first time they have put the seasonal music on record, though.

Warm and welcoming, with top class musicianship and songwriting, the album will make a great choice for your own music library and as a lasting gift for friends who enjoy bluegrass and old time music along with excellent singing and playing.

Here is the title track from On This Christmas Day. Joe wrote it after soundcheck in a restored church in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

There’s more to come here along the music road, both gift ideas and seasonal favorites old and new to enjoy. Stay with us as the season unfolds.

You may also enjoy
On this Christmas Day at April Verch’s web shop
First story of this season’s holiday gift ideas: Albums from Sarah McQuaid, the Spell Songs Singers, and the band Staran
Hanneke Cassel’s website
Music for Autumn’s Landscapes at Wandering Educators
Second in this season’s holiday gift ideas: music from Graham Rorie, David Milligan, Karine Polwart
Jay Ungar and Molly Mason’s website

Photograph by Jill Wellington

In times when you are able to listen to much music at no cost, take this as a gentle reminder that if you enjoy this music, help support the work of these artists and the cause of good, thoughtful music everywhere by purchasing their music. Direct purchase from an artist’s site is one way. Bandcamp is also a platform which supports artists’ work.

Speaking of support, if you’re in a position to do so this holiday season, your support for Music Road is most welcome. Here’s one way:

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Boston Celtic Music Festival: Song, Tune, Dance, and Friendship

Boston has long been a place where people from Ireland, Scotland, and Atlantic Canada traveled, sometimes settled, and often played music. These varied strands of music flourished in the Boston area. For a long time, though, despite what these Celtic strands had in common, these music scenes flourished but rarely interacted. That is until Shannon Heaton, who plays Irish music, and Laura Cortese, whose background is in the music of Scotland, were discussing this one day as they walked through Davis Square.

Maybe, they thought, they could do something about it.

“We thought, what if we had a session? a big party?” Heaton recalls. “Then, what if we had a big weekend? What if we had -- a festival?”

This year, the Boston Celtic Music Festival, BCMFest for short, marks year seventeen 16 through 19 January with workshops and concerts filling up venues around Harvard Square in Cambridge. World renown musicians and dancers from the New England area and beyond will take part.

The First Round concert kicks things off on Thursday evening at Club Passim. Fiddlers Leland Martin and Jake Brillhart along with pianist Janine Randal will present A Cape Breton Trip through Time: the quartet The Ivy Leaf brings song and tune from Ireland, England, Scotland, and America, and the Hanneke Cassel Trio, on this outing comprising Cassel, Keith Murphy, and Jenna Moynihan, will share music from Scotland, Newfoundland, and Cape Breton. There is sure to be original tune and song drawing from these Celtic traditions along with traditional material.

Once things wind down at the main concert, music keeps going with musical from across the weekend joining up in special collaborations. The Festival Club takes places on both Thursday and Friday nights.

Friday evening sees two longstanding favorites of the BCMFest annual schedule. Roots & Branches is a concert which showcases a range of styles from across Boston Celtic community, with performers including Louise Bichan and Yaniv Yacoby. The Boston Urban Ceilidh offers a chance for dancers of all experience levels or none to take the floor. Among those providing tunes for the dancers are Laura Cortese & Friends, with Hanneke Cassel as dance caller.

Saturday is time for Dayfest, a range of performances and sessions taking place at Club Passim, The Sinclair, and Harvard’s Smith Center.

Among the performers will be Sean Smith, who explores Irish, Scottish and English traditional song and tune on guitar. Rakish, who are the duo violinist Maura Shawn Scanlin and guitarist Conor Hearn will also take part. They perform Irish and Scottish music they grew up with and with, as their name suggests, their own slant.

Matt and Shannon Heaton make Irish music with their own distinct style and original tune and songwriting, too. Both are gifted singers and songwriters, with Matt playing guitar and bouzouki and Shannon playing flute and accordion. Coming down from Cape Breton, Gaelic singer Mary Jane Lamond and fiddler Wendy MacIsaac will take part in an in the round during Dayfest, as will top Irish dancer Kevin Doyle, who comes up from Rhode Island.

Dance performer, choreographer, and educator Kieran Jordan will return to the festival this year. “One of my favorite aspects of my life as a dancer is just to sit with a couple musicians around a kitchen table and map out a set list or brainstorm ideas — try out some tunes, fit some steps together, drink tea, see how it all unfolds. It’s the friendships and the shared love of music that really make the magic happen later on stage,” Jordan told the BCMFest blog. That sort of creativity, and appreciation for friendships formed and nurtured through music, are hallmarks of BCMFest that run through the performances each year.

Another BCMFest tradition, the Nightcap Finale Concert, ends the evening on Saturday. This year it takes place at The Sinclair, and will include performances from Kevin Doyle and Friends, The Treaty Trio, Laura Cortese and Friends, and Mary Jane Lamond and Wendy MacIsaac.

In another BCMFest tradition, that’s not quite the end, though. There’s almost always something going on on the Sunday of the festival weekend. This year, there’s the BCMFest Brunch at Club Passim, with music from Eamon Sefton and friends. In addition, Mary Jane Lamond will offer a workshop on Cape Breton Gaelic work songs and Wendy MacIssac will offer a workshop on putting Cape Breton tune sets together.

Tickets to individual events are available, most in the $10 to $25 rage, except the Sunday workshops, which are $40-$45. There are Irish and Scottish sessions at Harvard’s Smith Center on Saturday afternoon, which are free; reservations for a meal at the BCMFest Brunch are advisable but there’s no additional ticketing charge. For more information and ways to purchase tickets online, the BCMFest website is the place to go.

Photographs are, respectively, Hanneke Cassel, Sean Smith, Shannon and Matt Heaton, Wendy MacIsaac, and Mary Jane Lamond, with Corrina Hewat on harp in background; photo of Sean Smith courtesy of the artist. Other photos by Kerry Dexter. Thank you for respecting copyright.

You may also wish to see
Matt & Shannon Heaton: Fine Winter’s Night
Travels in Music, which includes Hanneke Cassel’s album Trip to Walden Pond
Sounds of Cape Breton from Mary Jane Lamond and Wendy MacIsaac
Canada in Music:3 Recordings to Explore, which includes Keith Murphy’s album Land of Fish and Seals
Winter’s Gifts: Music, which includes Jenna Moynihan’s album Woven

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Travels in Music: Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas, and Hanneke Cassel

Ports of Call is an appropriate name for a recording by Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas. Both their personal histories and their work as a duo include many points of the compass.

Fraser is a fiddle player, composer, and master teacher, a native of Scotland who has been long resident in California. Haas, whose instrument is the cello, grew up in California, studied in New York, lived for some years in Quebec, and is based in the Boston area.

That all comes into play through the music they have chosen and composed for Ports of Call. They explore tunes from Sweden, Norway, Galicia, Scotland, Finland, and France. There are original compositions by both of them, as well.

The Silver and Stuff set includes the title tune, a Norwegian bridal march, as well as a Swedish polska and a Norwegian hailing. A departure, you might think, for a pair best known for their interpretations and compositions of the music of Scotland? There are Celtic connections through long history of trade and travel between the Celtic lands and the Nordic ones, though, and Fraser and Haas are both always adventurous travelers across the world of music as well. These march into dance melodies and and then into another sort of dance in will have dancers twirling in your imagination. The music works both in idea and in melody.

That is also true of the reflective piece Walzska for Su-a, which Haas composed for friend and fellow cellist Su-a Lee while Lee was on a visit to Montreal. There’s a hint of love for the dark tones of Nordic cello in this piece, as well as, just maybe, a trace of Quebecois dance.

Lively melodies fill the Keeping Up with Christine set, which includes a tune Fraser wrote while in Adelaide, Australia, and named for that city. The second tune honors Fraser’s sister, who, Fraser writes in the album’s notes, “has achieved so much as a leader and instigator in the field of education and beyond.”

It is to the familiar place of Scotland they return for the Freedom Come All Ye set, in which that well known song of political comment by Hamish Henderson is imagined anew as an instrumental piece, and paired with an original jig by Haas.

There are more adventures in music to be found on Ports of Call, all of them part of the continuing conversation Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas create with their instruments. They chose these pieces to convey stories both original and traditional, which they do with understanding, clarity, and grace.

Hanneke Cassel knows well how to bring the qualities of clarity, understanding, and grace to her music, as well. A native of the US west coast, Cassel began her fiddling days in western swing. Before long, though, she was drawn into the music of Scotland. One of her teachers along her way into the tunes of Scotland and other Celtic musics was Alasdair Fraser.

Long a resident of the Boston area, Cassel has chosen to call her most recent recording Trip to Walden Pond. There’s a personal connection to that place for Cassel, and there are tunes on the album that connect to Kenya, China, Cape Breton, Scotland, and other places too. Cassel loves to compose tunes, and she also loves the work and the people of Many Hopes. That is a place in Kenya which, as she explains in her notes for the album, “rescues children from poverty and abuse, educating them to lead the next generation with justice and love.” To assist in raising funds to support Many Hopes, Cassel offered to compose tunes in return for donations. She asked donors to tell her their stories. Many of the tunes for Trip to Walden Pond arose from those stories.

Trip to Walden Pond is an adventure in contemporary Scottish American music. Cassel is known as much for her joyful personality and quick wit as she is for her thoughtful and reflective side: all of this comes in to her composing and playing. The Conchas Chinas set brings together three pieces whose melodies flow one into another with quiet strength. Coilsfield House is a tune from Scotland’s tradition: it was composed by famed late eighteenth century fiddler Nathaniel Gow. Cassel dedicates the tune to Carol Ann Wheeler, the teacher back in Oregon from whom she first heard it and the woman who, she says, first taught her to love the fiddle.

The Buddy’s Strathspey set is, as you might think if you know of strathspeys, a lively set which may have you dancing yourself or at least tapping your toes. The title tune of the set is one Cassel composed in honor of the late Buddy MacMaster, a legend in Cape Breton fiddle playing with whom she studied. The set includes two tunes she learned from another top class Cape Breton fiddle player, Jerry Holland. A set that celebrates an intricate dialogue between fiddle and piano, These 30 Years (for Jennifer) frame Cassel’s fiddle with piano played by longtime musical collaborator Dave Wiesler.

There are many more tunes on Trip to Walden Pond, ones that will take you from celebrating to dancing to reflecting. Cassel does not sing or speak a word yet the voice of her fiddle speaks eloquently of all these stories. Among them is the one inspired by that trip to Walden Pond.

That is a favorite place for this New England based artist.The tune itself is a lively reel that is based in Scotland while giving an nod now and then to bluegrass and Americana influences. On this tune and across the music of the album you will notice the creative work of Mike Block on cello. Block is part of the Grammy winning Silk Road Ensemble, and is respected as an innovative teacher and performer. One day, Cassel wanted to show Walden Pond to her longtime friend Block. The day after that visit, Block proposed. Soon after, she began writing the tune. Not long after that, the idea for the album began to circle around that piece.

You might also want to listen out for a tune on Ports of Call from Fraser and Haas -- it’s called Hanneke’s Bridal March.

You may also wish to see
Abundance from Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas.
For Reasons Unseen: Hanneke Cassel
Cathie Ryan: The Farthest Wave on which Hanneke Cassel plays a lovely fiddle break on the title track
Sounds of Cape Breton: Mary Jane Lamond and Wendy MacIsaac
A different version of Freedom Come All Ye: Robyn Stapleton sings the song, backed by Skippinish

Waterfall in Skye photograph by Steelogic; performer photographs by Kerry Dexter. Thank you for respecting copyright.

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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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Music in times of change

In the midst of change and uncertainty, it’s often a good idea to take time for contemplation and reflection, time to find interior silence -- even when there may not be much in exterior circumstances to encourage that.

Music is a good gateway to silence. That can seem a paradox, but recall that creating music is as much about the notes as the space between them. It has been said that a painter paints on canvas, and a musician paints on silence.

With those ideas in mind, take a listen to these four pieces of music.

At times music without words -- tunes, in the Celtic music world -- invite this sort of reflection. Fiddle player and composer Hanneke Cassel draws on the traditions of Scotland and Cape Breton with hints of bluegrass, Americana, and occasional inflections to other places her travels have taken her. Take a listen to the Gretl in the Garden set, which you may find recorded on her album Trip to Walden Pond.

Songwriter Carrie Newcomer often looks to intersections of faith and the everyday to frame her stories. Hers is a clear eyed faith and a clear hearted look at living both in the moment and seeing threads of connection, grace, and spirit that pull through, now and then laced with humor too. In this song, Newcomer reminds that in times of uncertainty it is often wise to, as she says in the title of her song, Lean In Toward the Light. The song is recorded on her album The Beautiful Not Yet.

Music can be a gift of hope, whatever the circumstance. Cara Dillon knows this. Dillon comes from Northern Ireland and loves to perform and record music from the folk traditions of Ireland and Scotland. She recognizes ideas that connect across time and oceans, too. This song, Bright Morning Stars Arising, has engaged Dillon’s audiences from Ireland to Scotland to China. You may find it on her album A Thousand Hearts.

The members of the band Capercaillie have taken their music to Africa, the middle east, North America, and other points across the globe. Their base, and the heart of their music, is in their home in Scotland, however. You will hear references to Scotland in this song -- the poetry of Sorely Maclean, for instance. It is a piece that invites more than one listen for both melody and words, though, and connects with ideas of contemplation, reflection, and trust whatever place you may call home. Karen Matheson sings lead. The song and the album where you will find it are both called At the Heart of It All.

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Scotland's Music: Hanneke Cassel,The Paul McKenna Band, Alba's Edge

Hanneke Cassel is a fiddle player and composer whose base in the music of Scotland also encompasses her love for bluegrass and what she’s learning from her travels to share her music in places as diverse as China, India, Kenya, her home state of Oregon and her longtime home base in New England. The Paul McKenna Band fuse the energy of their own explorations of Scotland’s traditions with their own travels to North America and beyond and their love for stories of journey told in word and melody. Alba’s Edge combines elements of the music of Cape Breton and Scotland with flavors of the vibrant New England jazz scene in a debut album that proves engaging and thought provoking. Listen to their differing takes on creating new music and interpreting older pieces that grow out of their shared love for the sounds and stories of Scotland, and where those stories have traveled.

Hanneke Cassel’s recording Dot the Dragons Eyes takes its title, and the inspiration for its title tune, from time she has spent in China.There she learned the idea that when an artist puts the last bits of color in the eyes of a dragon it brings the art work to life. As a woman of faith and imagination, Cassel saw the parallel with with the Biblical story of God bringing man to life from an image in clay -- and she went to create lively and uplifting tune that works just fine whether you know or believe anything about either of those ideas. It makes a fine introduction to a set of tunes, almost all of Cassel’s own composition, that range from waltz to jig and take inspiration from family members, friends, the Boston Marathon, and the students at One Home Many Hopes in Kenya, where Cassel has often traveled to share her music. Cassel has been a US National champion in Scottish style fiddle playing, studied with Alasdair Fraser and the late Buddy MacMaster, and worked with musicians from Irish American singer and songwriter Cathie Ryan to early music group Ensemble Galillie. Through all that and with all that, she has a distinctive tone in her playing as well as a gift for composition that is rooted in and respectful of the varied elements of Scottish tradition, while speaking entorely in her own voice on her instrument. Really you should listen to the whole of Dot the Dragons Eyes as it is sequenced -- every track is a keeper. If you are just wanting a taste, though, listen out for The Captain, Lissa and Corey/The Sunrise, and Jig for Christina.

The Paul McKenna Band is a high energy bunch, anchored by McKenna’s voice and often driving guitar. With bandmates Davis McNee on bouzouki, Sean Grey on flutes and whistles, and Ewan Baird on percussion including bodhran (they each sing too) and aided by guests including Mike Vass on fiddle and banjo and Jarlath Henderson, on Elements they offer songs and tunes from the tradition, from their own writing, and several maybe not so expected covers, creating a fine mix that proves engaging from first to last. One of those covers is of Canadian writer James Keelghan’s Cold Missouri Waters, which the band makes entirely their own with fine lead and harmony. Fast paced Mickey Dam, a song from the tradition, shows off their ability with songs from the past, while the Flying Through Flanders set, comprising tunes from Vass and Grey, proves their taste and prowess with instrumental pieces. The band can handle slower songs with finesse as well, evidence of which is offered on the returning to home in Scotland song Indiana.

The four members of Alba’s Edge -- Neil Pearlman on piano and vocals, Lilly Pearlman on fiddle and vocals, Doug Berns on bass and background vocals, and Jacob Cole on percussion and background vocals -- like the idea that the world alba in the band’s name means Scotland in Gaelic and dawn in Spanish. Playing a bit off that, they open and close their debut recording Run to Fly with short pieces called Rising and Setting, which serve, respectively, to set a mood of anticipation and quietly to draw things to a close and bid farewell. The eight tracks in between offer thoughtful engaging, intelligent music that weaves in the Scotland and Cape breton backgrounds of the Pearlmans (they are brother and sister) with their explorations of Latin, irish, Americana and other genres. Their fiddle and piano lines are framed by low end work from Burns and Cole, who bring respectively, backgrounds in playing Latin, funk, and Afro beat music and jazz and ska to the table. That said, such fusions often don’t work, or at least, don’t work out well enough to inspire interest. These four have that covered, though -- you don’t have to know anything about the background of any of this music to enjoy it as works that’s at times lively, at times soothing, at times thought provoking. At just the right moment, too, they draw the strands of tradition together by singing the traditional Scottish song of the sea, The Diamond. Run to Fly was produced by top class Scottish fiddle Player Aidan O’Rourke, who has worked with the innovative Scottish group Lau as well as the traditional stalwarts Blazin’ Fiddles.

Aside: should you ever have the chance to see any of these artists play live, take it. They all tour internationally, so that may come your way -- Alba’s Edge, for example, will be part of the Boston Celtic Music Festival in January, and the Paul McKenna Band will be appearing at Celtic Connections, while Cassel is doing several holiday appearances with Ensemble Galilie and appears at festival, teaches at fiddle camps and does concerts with her own trio as well.

Photograph by Kerry Dexter. Thank you for respecting copyright.

You may also wish to see
Coffee and the Mojo Hat: Neil Pearlman
Scotland's music: Katie McNally: Flourish
Aidan O'Rourke: Sirius

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Autumn music

Leaves are changing color. The winds that sets them drifting through the air holds an edge , a hint of deeper days of autumn and winter yet to come. The look of clouds at sunrise and angles of light as evening shadows fall are changing. It is autumn in the northern hemisphere. A time for harvest, for gathering, for celebration, for connection, for reflection.

Music to go along with these ideas

As the Crow Flies is a gathering of songs and tunes, many with a Celtic tinge, several from the song bag of American folk music, and a number of fine original pieces which draw on these sounds. It is a music made by a gathering of musicians too -- a core of fourteen fiddlers who play instruments made by Bob Childs, and gifted few who bring other instruments to add to the sound. You’ll have met several of these musicians here along the music road before.

note: click on the cover images or the text links to the title to hear samples of the music

Lissa Schneckenburger is indeed a gifted fiddle player, but it is her gifts as a singer which are to the fore onAs the Crow Flies, especially on the country blues tinged folk song Dear Companion. You’ve met Keith Murphy here before too -- his guitar and piano give tasteful backing to the fiddlers and his tunes give them music to work with. Listen out for the crossing Celtic borders set Childsplay Strathspey/Black Diamond/Putney Mountain Polka and for Child Suite, a set of four tunes Murphy composed thinking about the children of Childsplay members. Hanneke Cassel composed and/ or arranged several of the pieces here too-- the full fiddle sound of the group she brings in on her composition The Last Alleluia is one of those. You’ll have met Cassel here along the music road more than once, as you will Shannon Heaton, who gives Childsplay several tunes as well as adding her flutes and whistle in to the mix. You’ve also met Katie McNally, who joins in on fiddle, as well as Ariel Friedman on cello, and Nic Gareiss , who contributes the sounds of his step dancing feet. The there’s Liz Carroll, who produced the album, and wrote a tune -- the title tune -- for the ensemble.

There are other musicians as well, ones you could be be meeting for the first time, among them the maker Bob Childs himself, Mark Roberts on banjo and bouzouki, and long time Childsplay members Sheila Falls and Bonnie Bewick on fiddle. The dozen tunes and songs and song sets move from fast paced to contemplative, full on orchestral sound to graceful spare arrangement. From the sounds of Ireland to the heart of Scotland to the hills of Appalachia to the roads of New England, from voice and guitar to banjo and flute and bodhran and at the heart of it, fiddle, the music flashes and shimmers and changes much like the light of early fall. As the Crow Flies makes a fine companion for listening in this early autumn time.

photograph of autumn leaves is by Kerry Dexter, and is copyrighted. thank you for respecting this

You may also wish to see more about the music of several of the people mentioned above
Music of Maine: Lissa Schneckenburger
Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt & Shannon Heaton
Hanneke Cassel: For Reasons Unseen
Scotland's music: Katie McNally: Flourish
music of Vermont: Nightingale with Keith Murphy
Liz Carroll & John Doyle: Double Play

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

Scotland's music: Katie McNally: Flourish

Right from the first moments of the opening track on Katie McNally’s recording Flourish there’s a sense of invitation, a sense of engagement, a sense of adventure, all of which she sustains through the music she’s chosen for the album. McNally’s instrument is the fiddle, both the conventional one and the hardingfele. She bases her music in the traditions of Scotland. That’s a base and a matter of respect, to which she brings her own gifts as an interpreter and a composer.

That first track sees Waulking of the Faud from the tradition joined with McNally’s own tune called Lillian’s, a graceful, lively, and inviting beginning to a journey which leads through to a set of original jigs and into a pair of tunes from the tradition. There’s a tune from iconic Scottish fiddler James Scott Skinner and music from contemporary Scottish composer Phil Cunningham, whose work you’ve met before here along the music road. There’s an original waltz, and a set that pairs a jazz inflected tune with one that heads right for tradition, along with the intriguingly titled Bad Soup/ Riff Raff and Widget set, and Da Unst Bridal March from the tradition.

It’s all good stuff, music which finds McNally well able to negotiate tradition, and compose in it, while forging her own style within it. It is a style that respect her own experience as an American as well as it does her love of Scotland and its music. She has created music which will make good listening any time of year, but this recording seems an especially good companion for late winter musing and reflection -- and dancing too, the lively tunes may well have you going for that, or picturing those from bygone days doing so.

Katie McNally co produced Flourish with Hanneke Cassel, a fiddle player and composer you have met more than once here along the music road. Cassel sits in on harmony fiddle, and other musicians whose names may be familiar support McNally as well, among them Eric McDonald on guitar, Ariel Friedman on cello, and Corey DiMario on bass.

you may also wish to see
Hanneke Cassel: For Reasons Unseen
Cathie Ryan: The Farthest Wave
Long Time Courting: Alternate Routes

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here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this.Thank you.

Music and journey

Music has many roles along life’s roads. At times it a companion, at other times a historian, sometimes music is a connector. At times music is immediate and of the moment, and at still other times it calls back memories. Whichever of these roles music fills at a given moment. it takes us on a journey.

That’s as true whether you are listening to a song, a dance tune, a chamber music piece, or an orchestra movement. Music tells a story -- may stories, really -- and invites us along.

When musicians are creating albums, they think of that aspect too, in the way they sequence the pieces on an album. Now that it is possible for listeners to pick and choose in purchasing and listening to tracks rather than having whole albums, this experience of following a sequence is one that many people choose to bypass.

That can be a mistake. Hearing how an artist chooses to set one song alongside another, listening to what sort of connection there may be across pieces that open an album and that close it, hearing how songs interact with each other melodically and lyrically and in all the ways musicians choose to present them -- those are things which help make the journey of listening to music one of discovery.

Kathy Mattea, Cathie Ryan, and Nuala Kennedy each take quite different journeys on their new albums. Mattea, who has said that her doorway into country music was through folk music, has been walking back through that door since her album Coal, and that she continues with Calling Me Home, an album that begins with a traveler far from home and ends with Requiem for a Mountain. Cathie Ryan draws on her background and experiences in both Ireland and America to create a wide ranging yet clearly focused journey through the joys and sorrows of life on her recording Through Wind and Rain.
Nuala Kennedy brings in her heritage of Celtic tradition and her work in the contemporary world in a collection that looks to past and present for its inspiration on her recording Noble Stranger. You will be hearing more of each of these recordings in days to come.

following up on that, you may want to see the article Cathie Ryan: Through Wind and Rain for more on that album


It is also possible to lead this sort of journey through music without words. Two recordings you may want to check out to hear fine examples of this are Hanneke Cassel’s For Reasons Unseen and Alison Brown’s
The Company You Keep.

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here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this.Thank you.

Fiddle Masters in action on dvd

There is nothing quite like the experience of being present in person for a concert of music, whether it be music you love, a musicians who is well known to you you, or a musical adventure into something you’ve not heard.

That said, high quality, thoughtfully shot, well recorded, and well edited taping of such concerts offer a quality experience too. That’s definitely what’s going on with Fiddle Masters Concert Series, Volume 3.

There are twenty four sets taken from five concert recorded at the Violin Shop in Nashville, Tennessee. Players who take center stage include Casey Driessen, whose eclectic style crosses bluegrass, folk, jazz, and other things of his own invention, Daniel Carwile, a multi instrumentalist and educator who shows off is contest winning style on a series of rags and a haunting take on Midnight on the Water, Gabe Witcher, who is also a contest veteran and a current member of the hot acoustic group The Punch Brothers, and
Hanneke Cassel, former Scottish style national fiddle champion who offers fiery Scottish tunes and her own inspired compositions. Cellist Natalie Haas adds her unique style of rhythm on the cello to accompany several of Cassel’s tunes, and teams up with her sister Brittany for a medley of tunes from Norway. Young player Tatiana Hargreaves adds a classy take on the folk standard Pretty Saro, and joins up with Alex Hargreaves for Dusty Miller.

The Violin Shop is a place where musicians often meet up, a place where they know they can find quality instruments and get work done on the ones they already treasure, too. So it was a natural thing when the shop’s owners added an small space for performance to the place. That’s where these concerts where shot, and well done they are. Whether you are a player yourself, a fan on one or more of these artists, or just enjoy fine acoustic music, Fiddle Masters Concert Series, Volume 3 is well worth your time.

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Three Fiddle CDs for Fall
Music Road: Highlander's Farewell: Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas

Celtic Kenya musical connection

Kenya, Boston, Ireland, Scotland -- there’s connection there, and a connection shown through music in the album Lullabies for Love. Many of the musicians you’ve met here along the music road, along with a few who may be new to you, have joined together to offer you a fine range of Celtic tinged lullabies, to benefit One Home Many Hopes in Kenya.

One Home Many Hopes is an orphanage, but not just another orphanage. It finds, rescues, houses, loves and educates orphaned and abandoned girls in Mtwapa, Kenya and goes beyond that. By the education and love shown them, and the challenges offered, it equips these young women to be agents of change in their community and build for the future, and the present.

The work of One Home Many Hopes and the spirit of the young women who live there caught the imagination of Lindsay O’Donovan, who wrote the song Lullabye for Love, and the recording project evolved from there.
Heidi Talbot and Cherish the Ladies contribute the gentle song Castle of Dromore, the Donegal based band Altan offer Dún do Shuil, a lullabye in Irish with a chorus and title whose words mean close your eyes, and award winning fiddle player and composer Liz Carroll offers A Day and an Age. Aoife Clancy adds The Gartan Mother’s Lullabye, while Hanneke Cassel, Ariel Friedman, and Shannon Heaton join O’ Donovan for the title song. Karan Casey, Keith Murphy, Dougie MacLean, Aoife O' Donovan, and Alasdair Fraser are just a few of the other artists who add their music. It’s a project that will bring hours of good listening to your life, and help the lives and hopes of others at the same time.

To hear a bit of the music from the recording, and to see how to purchase your own copy, follow this link Lullabies for Love


There’s a benefit concert celebrating the CD release on 15 May at Club Passim in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The concert is sold out, but wherever you are in the world, you will be able to join in the fun and the music by watching on line through Concert Window. It's set for 4.30 to 7.30 US Eastern Daylight time.


you may also wish to see
Hanneke Cassel: For Reasons Unseen
Shannon Heaton: The Blue Dress
Aoife Clancy: Silvery Moon

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

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Road Trip Music : Oregon

Oregon has a varied landscape -- high desert, mountain and forest, windswept coast, rugged redwoods. As the Great American Road Trip travels through this part of the Pacific northwest, for a soundtrack we will have the work of two contemporary composers from Oregon, artists whose work is just as distinctive as the changing landscape. One writes cowboy songs, and the other composes fiddle tunes grounded in her love of and work in the music of Scotland.

Joni Harms is a rancher and farmer, living on land her great grandfather worked. Her crops include cattle and Christmas trees, and they also include songs, ones that are filled with stories of the people and land of the contemporary west. Harms has won many awards for her music, and part of her philosophy about it may be hinted at in the tile of her album Let's Put the Western Back in the Country,
which is a good choice for listening on this Oregon trip. If that mention of Christmas trees has got you thinking of the winter holidays, Harms also has a very nice album of western Christmas songs out, as well.

Hanneke Cassel grew up in Port Orford, on the Oregon coast, where at first she took up western swing style fiddling. Taking up her teacher’s challenge to try Scottish style music, Cassel won several national championships in it, and with them came the chance to study in Scotland. “I was hooked,” Cassel says. Now a respected player, composer, and teacher, Cassel’s own work is rooted in Scotland and brings in her own touches of American background as well. On this road trip through her native state, take a listen to For Reasons Unseen.

you may also wish to see

Hanneke Cassel and Christopher Lewis: Calm the Raging Sea
Music Road: road trip music: American west

This is part of The Great American Road Trip, in which I originally partnered up with A Traveler’s Library to add musical ideas to the book and film suggestions for journeys through the regions of the United States which you’d find there. The Library is closed now, but I think you will still find the journeys through music interesting.
For more about the road trip (and a look at some great road songs) see Great American Road Trip: Music begins

-->If you'd like to support my creative work,
here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this.Thank you.