Music and the new year

It is a time of year for resolutions, changes, and making lists. It is also often quite a shift from the warmth of connection and the quiet reflective days called forth by the major winter holidays. As you move into the work and life of the new month and this new year, music can serve as a companion and encouragement for exploration. Let it also be a reminder to keep the warmth and reflection and good things about the holidays alive in your heart and life as you take your next steps.

and to add to your plans for this new year, support live music. Go to a concert or a festival, and bring a friend or two along.

music to go along with these ideas
over at A Traveler’s Library in repsonse to a request for a story to fit in with a week of best of lists, I offer a list fo best music for journeys real and spiritual
you may also wish to see my choices for best music, 2012
and this music, silence, and spiritual journey

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Boston Celtic Music Festival on the way

January in Boston is usually a time when the weather is unpredictable, maybe cold, might snow, a time that draws people to think of staying indoors. That plays a part in why the Boston Celtic Music Festival takes place then.

Festival founders Shannon Heaton and Laura Cortese are professional musicians, so they know that touring musicians are often off the road during the depths of winter. Thinking about that, they also saw a chance to create a festival that would bring together musicians of varied Celtic backgrounds who work in and around Boston. In addition to the widely known Irish music community, there are many top players and singers with ties to Cape Breton, Scotland, and other Celtic lands.

It was an inspired idea. The festival, which takes place this year on January 7th and 8th, is going into its eighth season. Over the years, the family friendly event has focused on varied themes, from music featuring Boston to rising young players. This year, Heaton and Cortese, who still serve on the board of the artist run festival, say that events will highlight the connections between players and singers, melody and words. “In our experience, we’ve found the fiddlers, flutists, accordionists and other musicians love hearing good singers and songs – just as singers appreciate musicians who excel at showing their love of the instrumental tradition” says Cortese. “So BCMFest’s point of view is, why separate tunes and songs? Let’s get everyone together and enjoy the whole spectrum of Celtic music.”





That idea will play out over an opening concert Friday night featuring Long Time Courting, a four woman group which is known equally for fine singing and strong instrumental chops on cello, flute, guitar, and fiddle. That will take place at Club Passim in Harvard Square. Over in Watertown, the Boston Urban Ceilidh will rock the Canadian American Club with likely some of the highest energy and most fun dancing you’ve come across, fueled by music from Cortese, Hanneke Cassel, Kimberley Fraser, and others.

On Saturday, DayFest Stages at Passim and at First Parish Church will include a range of concerts and sessions. Power Ballads, Celtic Style, will be one of the events planned around a theme. Lissa Schneckenburger, Bethany Waickman, and other will be part of Lift Every Voice, the Royal Scottish Dance Company of Boston will take the Sanctuary Stage at First Parish, and Shannon Heaton will present tunes from her album The Blue Dress. At present, about twenty events will take place during DayFest . Further concerts and performers may be added as schedules unfold

The festival will conclude, as has become its tradition, with a concert in the sanctuary of First Parish Church. The members of Halali -- Laura Cortese, Lissa Schneckenburger, Flynn Cohen, and Hanneke Cassel -- will perform, along with a range of special guests yet to be announced.

The Boston Celtic Music Festival lights up winter in New England. Go, if you at all can. More information about tickets, schedules, and performers may be had at the festival’s web site, bcmfest.com


you may also wish to see

The Boston Celtic Music Festival: a look back
Hanneke Cassel: For Reasons Unseen
Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt & Shannon Heaton
Music Road: Best Music, 2010

Celtic Connections begins

Every year, the Celtic Connections Festival launches with a torchlight procession through Glasgow city centre.This happens this evening, 16th January. It’s start of three weeks of more than three hundred events across the range of Celtic cultures with collaborations, new voices, and looks back at classics, ballads and ceilidhs, and more than one thousand artists from more than twenty contries sharing their music with audiences who also come from across the globe.




Tonight, the Scottish Power Pipe Band and Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Pipe Band lead a mass of blazing torches from George Square to the Concert Hall steps, as Glasgow lights up for the first day of the festival.

Celebrations commence inside the Hall, as torch-bearers are invited to the Lord Provost's Drinks Reception, and the festival is pronounced officially open!

It all begins at 5pm Glasgow time


followed by

Celtic Connections Opening Concert "Common Ground"

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Main Auditorium



Celtic Connections 2008 will launch with “Common Ground”, with a host of musicians who have become synonymous with the festival over the years uniting on-stage to celebrate the festival’s 15th birthday.

Fiddler John McCusker will assume the role of Common Ground’s Musical Director, and will be joined on-stage by an all-star line-up of artists for whom Glasgow in January has become a home from home. Featuring Karine Polwart, Kris Drever, Kate Rusby, Sharon Shannon, Luka Bloom, Damien Dempsey, Michael McGoldrick, Karan Casey, Dezi Donnelly, John Joe Kelly, Mike Scott from The Waterboys, Julie Fowlis, Aidan O'Rourke, Iain MacDonald, Lauren MacColl, Jim Murray, James Mackintosh, Ewen Vernal, Kane, Welch and Kaplin and Chris Thile.

Minister for Culture Linda Fabiani who will attend the opening concert said:

"I am greatly looking forward to the 15th Celtic Connections festival. Celtic Connections has placed Scotland at the heart of international interest in Celtic music and heritage. It’s great to see artists from many countries joining our local talent to bring Celtic music lovers together and to give audiences world-class performances they will never forget."

Common Ground is a distillation of the spirit of collaboration and camaraderie that Celtic Connections is renowned for, with McCusker describing it as “a huge big glorious session.”

The festival will run in venues across Glagsow through 3 February, with artists inlcuding Altan, Danu, Liam Clancy, Cherish the Ladies, Mindy Smith, Paul Brady, Eddi Reader, Tim O'Brien, Emily Smith, Chris Stout, Cara Dillon, Fribo, Alison Brown, and others.

-->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.