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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Christmas Eve: Music to explore

Christmas music: it comes in forms and styles and ways to lsiten that are as many and varied as the ornaments on your tree. Christmas music, like those ornaments, can be old or recent, familer or waiting for new memories to be made, sparkling or quiet, funny or serious.

This Christmas, here are several suggestions that bring in aspects of all this:

Andrew Finn Magill chose pre-twentieth century music for his instrumental album Christmas Carols for Violin & Guitar. He plays both the violin and the guitar on the ten tracks, which come from well know pieces including Deck the Halls and Silent Night as well as less widely known ones such as Pois que dos Reys Nostro Sennor. Magill has backgrounds in Celtic and Appalachian music, as well as in jazz and in the musics of his adopted home of Brazil. This music well suited for both reflection and inspiration.

Reflection and inspiration make part of each of the recordings here. Humor often comes along too, gentle humor of the sort that opens connections, that is.

Some years back, Tish Hinojosa released a Christmas album that’s long gone out of print. A song she wrote for it, two songs really, as there are versions in both English and Spanish, have remained most requested parts of her holiday season shows, as they have to do with her annual conversations with her Christmas Tree. When Hinjosa decided to make a new holiday album, she knew those had to be included, along with new material and several other favorites from the past. She chose the title from one of the newly included songs, From Texas for a Christmas Night. Through the music on it, Hinojosa readily evokes not often heard aspects of Lone Star State Christmas time.

Emily Smith’s home ground is the southwest too -- the southwest of Scotland in her case. Her album Songs for Christmas s comprises well known carols, less widely known songs from Scotland, several contemporary songs and fine originals. There’s her quiet Winter Song and thoighful Find Hope, along with Little Road to Bethlehem, Silent Night, and other songs. Smith and her musical partner and husband Jamie McClennan have devised creative and fresh arrangements that serve the spirit and stories of the songs.

That is also true of Matt and Shannon Heaton’s recording Fine Winter’s Night . On it they offer song and tune in service of the season, original and traditional music based in Irish tradition, respecting its past while making music that speaks to present day listeners. Matt’s original story fo a Victorian Christmas, First Snowfall of December, stnads well beside O Little Town of Bethlehem. Shannon’s title track, Fine Winter’s Night, gracefully speaks of contrasts of the season; there’s also a piece about an unsung (until Shannon wrote the song, anyway) hero of Christmas; I’ll let you listen to the album to learn more about that. Then there’s this, in which the duo re imagined an African American song with an Irish touch. The chorus seems especially appropriate for this Christmas. Take a listen.

There are many more fine Christmas albums, of course -- I’d point you to Joy for Christmas Day by Kathy Mattea, Cara Dillon, Cherish the Ladies, and Tim Edey just for starters.

May this music be good companion to you as the festive season unfolds.

You may also wish to see
Winter’s Gifts: Music here at Music Road
Music for Starry Winter Nights at Wandering Educators
Christmas Eve, Reflections, and Travel at Perceptive Travel

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Listening to Christmas

Winter. Whether Christmas is your holiday or not, it is a time which invites connection and reflection, solitude and community. Here is music to go along with those ideas... take a listen.

Here’s a song in Irish -- it is called Don oíche úd i mBeithil/That Night in Bethlehem. Perhaps you will not understand the words, but you will get the idea of reflection and hope. It is performed here by Altan, whose most recent album is The Gap of Dreams.

To pick up the pace a bit, here is Emily Smith with the lively Little Road to Bethlehem. You may find on her album Songs for Christmas.

The song Fine Winter’s Night draws on the idea of cold nights which yet hold bright stars, and darkness which draws us in to gather and connect. You may find it recorded on the album called Fine Winter’s Night, by Matt and Shannon Heaton.

You may also wish to see
Christmas, Reflections, and Travel at Perceptive Travel
Further thoughts (and music ideas) thinking about December at Wandering Educators
Candles in the window at Christmas time here at Music Road

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Late Winter, Christmas, and Music

Late winter, leading up to Christmas, is a time that calls to flurries of activity and travel, preparation and celebration, even as it calls equally to reflection and quiet. Music, specifically of the season and otherwise, is always a good companion and a fine gateway to all these things. For a moment in the midst of hurry or for a longer time in the silence of night and morning, let the work of these musicians be you companion and guide.

Allow this music to renew your hope and peace and joy...

Wintersong, from New England based quartet Rani Arbo and daisy mayhem offers joy, sadness, reflection, exuberance, and good questions. All of this is framed in great harmony, fine lead singing, and top class playing on fiddle, bass, guitar, and percussion. There’s a lively treatment of Jesse Winchester’s Let’s Make a Baby King, a gospel infused spiritual from the African American tradition with Children Go Where I Send Thee. Christmas Bells finds guitarist Anand Nayak setting Longfellow’s words to a new, reflective melody. The four (Arbo on fiddle, Scott Kessel on percussion, Andrew Kinsey on bass, and Nayak on guitar; they all sing) interweave voices on a song Kinsey grew up with called Julian of Norwich. Arbo’s haunting lead well suits her original music framing words by Alfred Lord Tennyson in Ring Out Wild Bells. There’s a lifting of hope in the closing song, Singing in the Land. That’s just a hint of the music, which will make a fine companion for winter’s celebrations and questions.

The title of Heidi Talbot’s newest recording, Here We Go 1,2,3 suggests change. That is an idea that pulls through the songs, the ones she writes, and the ones she chooses from contemporary writers and from traditional sources. Talbot is Irish, living now in Scotland and married to fiddle player and composer John McCusker, who worked with her to produce this project. They’ve created a musical journey that references tradition and yet is contemporary. A clear eyed facing of shifting ground and a thread of resilience to learn from whatever comes are threads that pull through as well. These are stories, too, that leave any certain conclusion open to the hearer’s reflections. Talbot’s fine soprano and thoughtful phrasing illuminate these ideas in songs including the title track, Chelsea Piers, Song for Rose (will you remember me), and The Year That I Was Born.

...and if you happen to be looking for Christmas music, Talbot worked for some years with the band Cherish the Ladies. She is the voice on their fine seasonal album called On Christmas Night on songs including Silent NIght, The Holly and the Berry (all the women trade verses on this one), and The Castle of Dromore.

For her album Songs for Christmas, Emily Smith has chosen traditional and contemporary songs along with carols that have become favorites over the years as she done festive season concerts in her home region of Dumfries and Galloway in the southwest of Scotland. This year she’s expanded her holiday tour across Scotland, sharing such favorite carols as God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen and Silent Night along with the gentle contemporary piece Santa Will Find You, the American spiritual Heard from Heaven Today and the Scots song Christ Has My Hairt Aye. Her clear voice and thoughtful phrasing imbue the songs with holiday grace and make the collection work well together. Smith’s own songwriting shines too on Find Hope and on Winter Song.

This is Cara Dillon’s first year to offer a Christmas album. Her choices for the album, which is called Upon a Winter’s Night, are in keeping with the path she’s been following in her non seasonal work, With husband and musical partner Sam Lakeman, Dillon has created a seasonal outing that shares several original songs from the couple, a piece in Irish, a reach back in time to the twelfth century for the Wexford Carol and even further back for the Advent hymn O Come, O Come Emmanuel. Dillon, who grew up in Northern Ireland, infuses the songs with a haunting grace and touches of Celtic connection along the way.

Carrie Newcomer’s recording The Beautiful Not Yet is not filled with carols -- it is not a seasonal album -- but the ideas of connection, of questions, of thoughtful reflection, and of staying in touch across time and miles work well with the holiday season. New comer has a gorgeous alto voice on which to tell the stories in this collection of original songs, too. It is an album that works well across the seasons -- as indeed all the recordings here do. During the winter holidays you might find Lean in Toward the Light, The Season Of Mercy, Sanctuary, and The Slender Thread especially worth hearing.

Bringing us back to Advent and Christmas, Matt and Shannon Heaton offer Fine Winter’s Night, which moves from contemplating how the cold dark skies of winter connect to warmth inside our homes and lives, to lively jigs and reels, both original and from Irish tradition. There’s a vignette of a Christmas love story set in Victorian era winter, and a story about a cat and Christmas, too, along with thoughtful presentations of carols including O Little Own of Bethlehem and It Came Upon the Midnight Clear. Shannon plays the flute, Matt plays the guitar, and they both sing, trading leads, joining in duets, and adding graceful harmonies as festive songs mix in with seasonal tunes.

Photograph at top by Jude Beck, other photographs by Kerry Dexter. Thank you for respecting copyright.

You may also wish to see
Music for a Winter’s Day at Wandering Educators
Scotland, Christmas, and Music at Journey to Scotland
Music for the Heart of Winter: Cathie Ryan here at Music Road
Cherish the Ladies: storytellers in song: Christmas here at Music Road

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Second week in Advent

Advent: it is a season which holds both preparation and celebration, both reflection and creation. In the prayers said at mass when I was growing up, it was a time when we were advised read and reflect on the wisdom to be learned from the scriptures. I thought then and still do that there is much wisdom of the season to be gained in song and story, in poem and painting and looking up at the night and morning star, as well. Ideas which may illuminate scriptural aspects, and which may be illuminated by them.

Music to go along with these ideas, seasonal and otherwise --

Anticipation is one of the features of Advent. That’s an aspect Gretchen Peters expresses in two very different ways on her album Northern Lights in her songs Waitin’ on Mary and December Child. With people across the world thinking about or being refugees so much at this time, it’s a good time to take a listen to them both.

Carrie Newcomer’s music is always both reflective and thought provoking, and quite beautiful as well. On her album A Permeable Life the songs Light in the Window and Writing You a Letter speak to the aspects of travel and connection across distance that come with winter holidays. So, too, does the tile track of her European release The Slender Thread.

There’s joy in the anticipation and preparation as well as tenderness and reflection. Cherish the Ladies are great at expressing all these through their music. They have a new seasonal album out this year which they went to County Clare to record and have called Christmas in Ireland. Song, tune, and spoken word comprise the lively collection. If you might have a taste for seasonal music mostly in Irish, then check out the just released collection Amhráin Na Nollag: Favourite Christmas Songs in Irish from Róisín Elsafty and Ronan Browne with Tony Maher. In addition to spiritual classics including Don Oíche Úd I Mbeithil/ One Night on Bethlehem there are also seasonal favorites, among them that song about the reindeer, Rudolph Na Sróine Deirge.

Shannon Heaton recognized that she wasn’t a big fan of winter weather, but, having chosen to make her home in Boston, she decided to write a song that would help her remember the good things about deep winter. The result is Fine Winter's Night, in which she contrasts the beauty of cold night with its sparkling stars with warmth beckoning to fellowship and community within. It became the title track fro the seasonal album Shannon and her husband Matt made, which includes several fine originals in both song and tune, the Wexford Carol, which reaches back to twelfth century Ireland, and other fine songs new and old.

Take a listen to these musicians this Advent, and see how their perspectives might inform your celebrations and anticipations this season.

Photographs by Kerry Dexter. Thank you for respecting copyright.

You may also wish to see

First Week in Advent: music and quiet
Advent reflections and music
Music for Winter Travels and Celebrations at Wandering Educators
Wreaths, Music, Legend at Perceptive Travel

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Ireland's music: Matt and Shannon Heaton: Tell You In Earnest

For their album Tell You in Earnest Matt and Shannon Heaton decided to choose songs framed in conversation between two people. The reason for that choice, Shannon says, was twofold. For one thing though Matt and Shannon both have been and continue to be involved in bands and side projects, for a good while now, “ and now maybe more than ever,” Shannon says -- the husband and wife have made their duo performances and recording their home base in music. The second reason, she explains, builds on that.

“It’s great to play with a whole band, it’s lovely,” she says, “ but there’s something just really intimate and spectacularly expressive about a conversation between two people. Maybe a third party wanders into the story in a song, maybe a cello wanders in, but ultimately it’s about the essence of two people and what they can say to each other and how they can listen to each other. So I think,” she continues, “ it was meant to be this overt demonstration, musically, of what a duo is, which is a bunch of different conversations in a bunch of different moods.”

Different moods and different sources, too.

To open the recording, there’s Cruel Salt Sea, a song which had its origins in the traditional ballad Outlandish Knight. Shannon describes the evolution of the song to the version on Tell Me in Earnest. “That song always grabbed me. I always thought it was the outlandish knight, like the craaazy knight! But he was from the northlands, the outlands,” Shannon says. From the traditional version she’s learned on a recording by Shirley Collins “I started changing the words around - of course -- first because I wanted to condense some of the verses. People aren’t going to listen to twenty five verses. So to condense, I have to rewrite a little bit, and then I always like to change any super weird vernacular stuff. But there were still a lot of verses, and so I felt like there had to be resting places, so I added the repeating lines, and then I added a bridge -- I really like the bridge -- and then before I knew it I’d taken away the words outlandish knight and added the words cruel salt sea. So I changed the title. Tinkering around, that’s what trad musicians do!”

Giving their own stamp and creativity to music from the tradition as well as creating their own music is indeed what the Heatons do. On Tell You in Earnest focusing on the idea of dialogue or conversation songs (“Each song is like a mini play,” Matt says), they also take on the Child ballad Gallant Hussar, following mostly traditional words and melody enhanced with original instrumental breaks. There’s Richard Thompson’s classic set of conversations between a guy and a girl about a bike -- and much more -- in Vincent Black Lightning 1952. There’s the dialogue between mother and son that creates a powerful anti war message, all the more powerful when you realize it was written some centuries back -- called Mrs. McGrath. There is a mostly traditional version of a song called The Demon Lover, framed in a conversation with the devil and its consequences, and on a happier note, an over the top Thai love song, Mon Rak Dawk Kam sung in Thai, blending the Heatons’ understanding of Irish traditional music with Shannon’s longtime connections with Thailand. That song, whose title translates as The Enchanted Flower of Kam Tai, proved to be a way into an aspect of this recording the Heatons had not expected. Shannon credits her time spent as an exchange student in Thailand with opening the door to her love of traditional music -- her own heritage tradition of Irish music -- by immersing her in another set of older traditions from another culture. In recent years, on occasion they have worked some of this in to their Irish music repertoire. “As we were thinking about conversation songs, Mon Rak Dawk Tam Kai is a beautiful conversation song, so we thought let’s try it. We were messing around with the idea of including a Thai song on the album and then it got a little deeper. We realized, you know what, that’s part of who I am. And Matt -- he loves electric guitar, he loves surf guitar, he’s played in rock bands since he was a kid.” Parts of that aspect of Matt’s music come out on his work on On Rak Dawk Tam Kai as well as his funny original Easy Come East Go and the well traveled traditional ballad Edwin of the Lowlands Low. In the past, they have included touches of these things here and there in their bedrock devotion to Irish traditional music. “But this time,” Shannon continues, having those touches in their music on this album “That’s really our authentic musical expression, that’s really who we are.”

Matt and Shannon Heaton met in Chicago, when flute player Shannon was called for a wedding gig and needed a guitar player to accompany her. Matt grew up in Pennsylvania, turing the pages for his father;s professional concerts before heading off into his own explorations of rock, surf, tango, and Irish guitar. Shannon’s parents took their kids with them as they lived in several different countries; it was as a young child in Nigeria that she first fund herself drawn to the flute. Later, she studied classical music and ethnomusicology in addition to spending that time in Thailand.

All that may not sound exactly like the background you would expect for two of the most highly regarded players, composers, singers, and teachers in contemporary Irish music. That is a the strong strand of their heritage, however, and they have spent time learning music in Ireland as well as immersed in the vibrant Irish music community of their home base in New England.

The characters in the songs on Tell You in Earnest come alive through the conversations in the lyrics, and through the conversations opened up through the Heatons’ lead and harmony singing, and through their thoughtful and well conceived melodies and intros and instrumental breaks as well. They offer a range of human experience, from the hauntingly poetic murder ballad Edwin of the Lowlands Low to Matt’s funny original song Easy Come Easy Go, in which he imagines what could happen if a bit of story often found in traditional songs went awry. There are grim conversations and supernatural elements, over the top love songs and funny ones, all told in conversations framed in the Heatons' always creative take on carrying tradition into the present.

Give a listen -- these are conversations you will want to return to again and again.

Photographs of Matt and Shannon Heaton (with guest Mike Block on cello in the top one) by Kerry Dexter. Thank you for respecting copyright.

You may also wish to see
Lovers' Well: Matt and Shannon Heaton
Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt and Shannon Heaton
Listening to Ireland: Patrick season

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Winter meditation

Winter is a time when dark comes early. We light the lamps and fires to bring light inside, and go outside to reflect on the stars in the night sky, and perhaps, the fall of snowflakes. It is a time for remembering and sharing well loved stories, and singing songs handed down across time. A time for gathering, and a time for solitude, winter is also a time for appreciating and reflecting on the roads traveled the changes made, the friendships which last, the lessons learned, the winter season is as much a time for mediation and planning and dreaming of what’s to come as well as recalling what’s past and enjoying what’s present. Whether you make resolutions at the turning of the year ot at some other time, or not at all, music is a fine companion for the reflective aspects of winter.

Music to go along with these ideas

note: clicking on text links and album cover images will take you to places where you may read more about the music and/or hear bits of it. photographs above are by Kerry Dexter and are copyrighted. thank you for respecting this.

Matt and Shannon Heaton offer Shannon’s song Fine Winter's Night which evokes the clear winter skies, cold nights, and the warmth of connection and music which also mark the season, as the tile track for their seasonal album Fine Winter's Night

It might seem touch unusual to suggest an album called Summer's End for winter meditation, but I think you’ll find Therese Honey recording of original and traditional Celtic music on the harp a good choice, as well.

Al Petteway and Amy White employ guitar dulcimer, keyboard and other instruments as they explore the Appalachian side of winter in Winter Tidings.

Gretchen Peters does a fine job of working with a song of Appalachia too, I Wonder As I Wander. It is on her album Northern Lights. which contains fine traditional and original music of the lights and shadows of winter.

Hanneke Cassel is a fiddle player and composer who has a number of albums that go well with winter reflection. The music of Scotland is her inspiration but in both interpretation and composition, her music is all her own. At this season, I’d suggest Some Melodious Sonnet

and from Carrie Newcomer, a musician whose work you’ve met before here along the music road -- a song inspired by a drive home on a winter's night

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Boston to Ireland to Thailand

Matt and Shannon Heaton make music where Ireland meets America, drawing from and respecting and creating with the traditions which arise from this. The Boston based musicians are recording their fifth album as a duo. It will be a collection of dialogue songs, songs where there is conversation in the lyrics. Based on their earlier albums and their concerts and their teaching, it’s bound to be filled with great music, and include a few surprises.

One of those surprises is that they are planning to do a CD release concert in Thailand.

Boston, Ireland --Thailand? How’s that again?

It’s come about because Shannon spent her first year of college as an exchange student in Suphanburi, Thailand. There, her experience with the traditional music of Thailand and the people who played it led her to look more deeply to the music of her own heritage -- Ireland -- and played a part in setting her on the path she’s followed since, as a professional working in Irish music. Several years back Shannon reconnected with her Thai friends, and was able to introduce Matt and later, their son, to the country which played such a part in her life.

Now, they want to give a free concert to the people of Suphanburi to launch their new CD -- and you can help them do so by contributing to their project at Indie GoGo.

Listen to Matt and Shannon tell their story about this and hear a bit of their music:

Certainly they have many nice rewards should you choose to contribute -- and they’ve decided to give ten per cent of what they raise to the charity Mercy Centre, too. At this writing they’ve raised about a third of their goal, and have just a bit over a month left to meet it.

One thing you could do to help which won’t cost you a thing is to invite people you know over to this story, so they can learn about the project as well.

photo by Kelly Lorenz

You may also wish to see
Lovers' Well: Matt and Shannon Heaton in which they include a Thai love song in with the Irish music, and make that work just fine
Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt and Shannon Heaton about their winter holiday concert
Shannon Heaton: Oil for the Chain Shannon's book on learning music -- not just for flute players.
my favorite Matt and Shannon Heaton album -- so far. click on the image to hear samples of the music.

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Fourth week in Advent: music and meditation

Advent is a time of reflection, a time for seeking peace. It is a time for the work of solitude and the work of being in company. A time for preparation, quiet, and connection. Whether Advent is part of the faith you mark or not, winter is a good season for such things. Music is a way into into and through these ideas, as well.




Wintersong by Tammerlin makes a good gateway and companion for these journeys. From the opening song Winter’s Grace though the carol Silent Night, Lee Hunter and Arvid Smith. invite the listeners along on a journey well suits the contemplative nature of winter, with room for consideration of its changes and challenges along with its comfort and peace. In keeping with the music they’ve chosen, their arrangements are spare and rich at the same time. Hunter, who does most of the lead vocals, has a natural and relaxed storyteller's style which finds her moving through music from France, Appalachia, and contemporary folk as well as traditional carols which focus and grace. There are four brief spoken word selections included within the program as well, two from the writings of Henry David Thoreau and one each from Annie Dillard and Wendell Berry. In Hunter’s voice and in the duo’s choice of music, these prove natural extensions of their winter ideas, as they illuminate the the music and the music adds dimension to the words.

The music on Fine Winter's Night from Matt and Shannon Heaton illuminates the season, too. Sacred and secular aspects of winter dance with each other through the original and traditional music the two offer. Matt sings lead on his original take on a Christmas encounter a century or so ago in First Snowfall of December, and on the Wexford Carol, a hymn from twelfth century Ireland. Shannon takes a light touch with the tale of Julius the Christmas Cat preparing for the Holy Family, and offers a new setting to sixteenth century poetry for winter in her version of Star Song. There are a number of sessional instrumentals with Matt on guitar and Shannon on flute, as well as more carols, and original songs. These frame the centerpiece of the album’s idea and music, the title track Fine Winter’s Night, in which the connection and solitude of winter’s journey meet.

the photograph on the upper right is of holiday lights on Harvard Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is copyrighted. thank you for respecting that.

you may also wish to see
Klezmer: Music for the Festival of Lights
Song of Solstice: music for changing seasons
Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt & Shannon Heaton

and

Delicious Baby's Photo Friday, where travelers offer new insights to the world each Friday

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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.

Another way to support: you could If you enjoy what you are reading here, check out my newsletter at Substack for more stories about music, the people who make it and the places which inspire it.

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

Holiday gift list: Irish music

The winter holidays are here, a great time for gift giving. What makes a better gift than Irish music? Look into these -- and, indeed, any recording by the artists named here -- and you will want to have several for your own as well as fill out your gift list. If you’ve come to Irish music by way of the stage shows by Celtic Women, the High Kings, and Lord of the Dance, welcome -- and prepare to go deeper into the music of the Emerald Isle. Much deeper. More about that idea here.




Cathie Ryan The Farthest Wave
Resilience and restraint are two qualities which mark Ryan’s work here, both in her singing and in the songs she chooses. Not for nothing was she named Irish Voice of the Decade, and she is also one of the best songwriters around, as witness the title track, a consideration of healing, hope, and courage framed in images of myth and the natural world. To learn more of Ryan’s work, you may like to follow this link.







Matt and Shannon Heaton Lovers’ Well
Lovers’ Well is one of those recordings that reveals more grace each time you hear it. Matt and Shannon Heaton have chosen a mix of not so usual Irish songs about love in its varied guises, along with tunes that are just the right tempo for couples to dance to, and a love song from Thailand, honoring Shannon’s time spent in that country, which somehow fits perfectly. Both the Heatons sing, separately and with fine harmony; he plays guitar and bouzouki, she plays whistles and flutes. If you happen to want to learn to play Irish music, or have someone on your gift list who does, follow the link above also to find out about Shannon's book, Oil for the Chain, which is a fine resource.

Julie Fowlis and Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh Dual
Julie Fowlis is from the Outer Hebrides of Scotland; Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh is from West Kerry in Ireland. Several years back they found that there are both similarities and differences in the musical traditions of their home places, and began exploring them. This intriguing album is the result.

Liz Carroll and John Doyle Double Play
Liz is an American who plays the fiddle so well that she won All Ireland competitions as a teenager; John is an Irishman now resident in America, a guitarist and singer who has been touring with Joan Baez and has worked with Susan McKeown, Cathie Ryan, and Michael Black and was a founding member of Solas. Liz is also a very fine composer. Plenty of her originals on here, and powerful singing and playing from John on traditional music too.

Donal Clancy Close to Home
The guitar is a rather recent addition to Irish traditional music, and Donal Clancy is one reason why it is such an integral part of the genre now. For this recording, it’s basically the man and his guitar on a gracefully chosen set of traditional tunes in Clancy’s own arrangements. For more on this album see Voices: Donal Clancy



Altan Local Ground
Local Ground for Altan is Donegal, in the northwest of Ireland. That’s an area where the traditions of Ireland and Scotland have mixed over the years, producing a tradition that’s both vibrant and soulful. This recording shows that through tune and song, and gives hint of why Altan is still delighting listeners after more than twenty years. also see music of Donegal: Altan




Aoife Clancy Silvery Moon
That's pronounced EEfa, in case you were wondering, and she’s cousin to Donal, above. She’s chosen a mix of American and Irish songs songs well suited to her inviting voice and style for this collection. There’s a stunner of a song about peace in Ireland, too, by another cousin, Robbie O’Connell, called There Is Hope -- look out for that one especially


and if Irish dance is especially your thing, be sure to check out this CD: Ellery Klein & Ryan Lacey: Kick into the Beat

coming up along the music road: holiday gift suggestions for the music of Scotland, the music of America, and music connected to the winter holidays.


you may also wish to see
Music Road: Best Music, 2010
Music Road: now playing: Mary Black: 25 years 25 songs
Music Road: now playing: Karan Casey: Ships in the Forest
Music Road: holiday gift list: music of Canada
Music Road: holiday gift list: American harvest
Music Road: Cathie Ryan: Songwriter

-->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.

photographing music: connections

Connection -- player to listener, musician to musician, melody to idea, harmony to harmony, instrument to voice -- is part of the work of music. It is also part of the work of life which music helps us see and know.




























thanks to the musicians who were kind enough to let me take these shots: Shannon and Matt Heaton, Hanneke Cassel and Cathie Ryan, Mark Stuart and Stacey Earle, Eileen Ivers and Greg Anderson, and Matraca Berg, in Cambridge, Fall River, Austin, Tallahassee, and Nashville.

you may also wish to see
Music Road: creative practice: winter light, and music
Music Road: Reflections: five of the best
Delicious Baby's Photo Friday, where travelers offer new insights to the world each Friday

photographs taken by and copyright Kerry Dexter.