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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You may also wish to see

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

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

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

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

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Celtic Colours: Community beyond Geography

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Events I am especially looking forward to include

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Challenges: moving the festival online

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

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

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

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

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

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

Collaboration and connection

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

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

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

Music at the heart

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Celtic Colours Festival: Heritage and Heart on Cape Breton

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Celtic Colours on Cape Breton

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-->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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Cape Breton and Music: Celtic Colours

Cape Breton is a place of silence and music, of quiet solitude and deep community. It is a place where mountain meets sea, and where home place is vital and stranger always given warm welcome. All of these are part of the mosaic of life on Cape Breton which is celebrated each autumn during the Celtic Colours International Festival.

Music is at the heart Celtic Colours, music that Cape Breton’s sons and daughters have drawn from deep Celtic roots taken across the world as well as songs and tunes and dance from across Canada, from Scotland where many Cape Breton traditions began, from the United States, from Ireland, and from other communities whose lives have intertwined with the landscape of Cape Breton, including the First Peoples of the Mi’kmaq and those who have come from Ukraine to live in Atlantic Canada.

This year, Celtic Colours begins on 10 October and winds through nine days and nights of music, fun, family, food, and community. Things begin this year in Port Hawkesbury at the southern tip of Cape Breton, with a concert celebrating The Ties That Bind, from family to friendship to tradition. It is an evening which will include music from Scotland’s Phil Cunningham on accordion and Aly Bain on fiddle, step dance and sean nos dance from this year’s festival artists in residence, Mac Morin of Cape Breton and Nic Gareiss from the United States, Gaelic song from The Campbell Family of Scotland, fiery fiddling from cousins Ashley and Wendy MacIsaac of Cape Breton.

As the festival time unfolds. there will be community events including meals, talks, nature walks, art exhibits, craft fairs, music sessions, blacksmiths, weavers fisher folk and historians all sharing their passions, and ceilidhs in addition to a full schedule of concerts across the island each night. Highlights include

a farmers’ market at Sydney River, and a community market with crafts and produce on offer as Isle Madame

Dusty Slippers, a class which invites former step and highland dancers to get back ion the swing of things, at Port Hawkesbury

a show of art along the waterfront at Whycocomaugh and an exhibit of colorful and whimsical folk art called Art for the Soul at the Cape Breton Centre for Craft and Design in Sydney

a family square dance at Glencoe Mills, an advanced fiddle class at Saint Peter’s, the Buddy Macmaster School of Fiddling classes at Judique, a traditional tunes session at Cape Breton University in Sydney, a Gaelic song workshop at the Highland Village Museum, the Aboriginal Art at Cultural Festival at Wagmatcook

and those community meals:

a celebration of Acadian food and music at Cheticamp

a taste of Ukraine at Holy Ghost Ukrainian Church Hall in Sydney

roast beef dinner in Port Morien, and fishcakes and beans for supper in D’Ecousse

corn chowder, fresh caught fish, crab, mussels, salmon, lobster, fish chowder and more fishcakes in all sort of locations from Bay Saint Lawrence to L’Ardoise to Mabou

a lighthouse sandwich for breakfast, a ceilidh along with your lunch, roast turkey and fixings for supper as Thanksgiving is celebrated in Canada...

This year the festival is supported by Presenting Sponsor the Chronicle Herald, as well as Nova Scotia Tourism Agency, Seaside Communications Inc., Vibe Creative Group, TD Bank Group, and Enterprise Rent-a-Car, who are joining the festival’s ongoing sponsors, businesses which support the festival year after year. They, along with hundreds of volunteers, help make the range of festival events possible.

Evening concerts -- more than forty of them in venues all across Cape Breton-- remain the heart of these events. Most concerts at Celtic Colours, just as with that opener in Port Hawkesbury, are set up to feature three or more acts on a bill, who do sets on their own and then gather for a finale. This autumn, the concerts include

In Inverness, an evening featuring sister musicians, among them Brittany and Natalie Haas and Dawn and Margie Beaton

a tribute to iconic fiddle player Buddy MacMaster, who would have turned 90 during the festival, in his longtime hometown of Judique with musicians from across Cape Breton as well as musical friends from Scotland and the US, including top fiddler and composer Alasdair Fraser

Irish, Creole, and Acadian music intertwine on an evening in D’Ecousse, while musicians with a Touch of the Irish join up at the town of Lower River Inhabitants, and connections of traditional music and dance are the highlight at Mabou in a gig called Close to the Floor, featuring Nic Gareiss, Mary Ann Kennedy, Mac Morin, Mairi Rankin, and Dannsa Morin will spotlight his other love, piano, another night in Mabou when he’s joined by Erin Leahy, Troy MacGillvray, Tracey Dares MacNeil and others to celebrate Cape Breton piano

Ireland, Ontario, Cape Breton, and Scotland meet at Louisbourg Crossroads in the theatre in that city for song and tune from Tony McManus, Laura Smith and others while historic Fortress Louisbourg hosts several Celtic Colours events, among them Music of the Night. On that evening pub, dance hall, drawing room and street scene feature music at it might have been in 1745

Back in contemporary Cape Breton, Roots and Rhythms finds Irish multi instrumentalist Sharon Shannon sharing tunes with Quebecois trio De Temps Antan and Cape Breton Gaelic singers, fiddlers, and step dancers Anita MacDonald and Ben Miller. At another stage further north on the island family and friends gather to pay tribute to and play along with renown Cape Breton piano player Maybelle Chisholm McQueen

There’s more, of course -- on Cape Breton there is always more music and welcome. The formal concerts finish up on the evening of 18 October, though, with Together Again: Natalie’s Reunion.

Natalie MacMaster, who has taken Cape Breton music across the world and into collaborations from bluegrass to classical, comes home to share an evening of music with top musicians from Ireland, Scotland, and her own Cape Breton, on a bill that includes Sharon Shannon, JP Cormier, Tim Edey, and Beolach. It should be an evening, and a festival, to remember.

Not making it to Cape Breton in time for the festival? In past years several concerts have been available on the internet, usually announced quite close to performance dates. Keep an eye on the Celtic Colours web site to see if that will be happening this year.

You may also wish to see
sounds of Cape Breton: Mary Jane Lamond and Wendy MacIsaac
Music road trip: Cape Breton
another view of Celtic Colours, with video, at Wandering Educators
Natalie MacMaster's recent recording, Cape Breton Girl

Photographs of autumn leaves, Wendy MacIsaac, and Alasdair Fraser with Tony McManus are by Kerry Dexter and are copyrighted. Thank you for respecting this.

-->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.

Sounds of Cape Breton

Cape Breton, on the far north coast of the Maritimes in Canada, is a land of forest and sea, woodland and mountain, winding road and fishing port. It is also a land where many emigrants, especially those from Scotland, have found harbour. It is a place where the language, music, and culture of Scotland thrive and flourish and intertwine with landscape and in community with other peoples who have made Cape Breton home. All of these things make their way into the sounds of Cape Breton.

“I was drawn to the language first,” says Mary Jane Lamond. “ My grandparents were Gaelic speakers so I was always interested in the language and the song tradition, and began spending time with people who were interested in songs. It became a passion for me, and I think I really found my voice when I started singing Gaelic songs.” Lamond has carried that passion and understanding of Gaelic music across Canada and the world and back to Scotland as well with her appearances at concerts and festivals, as she has become one of the most renown artists of Gaelic song.

Her musical partner at many of these gigs has been Wendy MacIsaac, who plays fiddle and piano and has been known to step dance on stage as well. MacIsaac started out in step dancing, in fact.

“My mom used to teach step dancing lessons with Natalie MacMaster’s mother, actually. They’d go around to the dance halls in surrounding communities on Cape Breton and teach, and I’d go along with them and picked it up by getting into the circle. It was definitely my first bit of music -- and then when I did learn how to play the fiddle, I almost immediately began playing for dances. I have to say, that was my practice, really -- when you play for three hours a night several times a week, you have to know a lot of tunes, you learn tempo, you learn what people like to dance to.” MacIsaac had the rhythms of Gaelic on Cape Breton by heart, as well. “My grandparents were Gaelic speakers,” she says, “so although I don’t always understand everything that Mary Jane might be saying in a song, I understand it, you know.”

It is with a set of tunes which invite dancing that the album Seinn starts of. It winds through varied story and song, traditional and contemporary, of the sounds of Cape Breton of its landscape and people.

Nearly twenty years ago now Lamond and MacIsaac crossed paths in the music community on the island, and became friends. Though they’ve done many projects together and separately, Seinn is their first recording to focus on their sound as a duo.

“We were both overdue to put out an album,” says MacIsaac, “so it seemed like it was time. When we first sat down to figure out what we wanted to do, we didn’t have every track in mind. We probably had five songs where we knew what direction we were going. Then what Mary Jane would do is run songs by me, ones that she really liked, and what I would do a lot of times is pick a tune that would compliment the song.”

What draws Lamond to a song? “Melody,” she says, “I like to have different kinds of rhythms on a record, and of course the story in the lyrics, too, and a certain kind of, I guess, rootedness.” She finds that in songs from the tradition and from contemporary writers. For example, The Blue Mountain’s Lullaby is a contemporary song by Jeff MacDonald and Brian O’hEadhra, while The Soldier’s Song reaches back into the history of the isle of Skye.

MacIsaac often interweaves tradition and present day as well. That opening set, Yellow Coat, comprises two tunes from Scottish and Cape Breton tradition, a tune from Cape Breton musician Kinnon Beaton, and another from Irish fiddle player Tommy Peoples. Then there were times when MacIsaac wrote tunes for the project. “I haven’t written many tunes for my own albums, and I don't know why that is!” she says, laughing. “For a set called Boise Monsters, there’s a tune I wrote basically half way through the record - we were thinking we needed something in that spot maybe a little different from the traditional sound.” Another MacIsaac tune, called Keeping Up with Calum, got its name “ because while we were working on the record my one year old son was busy rearranging my house!”

The tunes and songs flow naturally across Seinn from dance to air, from songs with the rhythm of work to tales told of love to stories of place. In Lamond’s graceful voice and MacIsaac’s fiery playing you hear the sounds and voice of Cape Breton present and past, and the sounds of connection and friendship. “Joy,” says Mary Jane Lamond. “That’s what I would like people to take away from this album - a sense of being joyful, being uplifted by this music. Because that’s how I feel about it!”

It took nearly a year for Lamond and MacIsaac to put the album together as they balanced creating it with their other commitments. One benefit of this, though, was that they were able to include -- in addition to their regular musical collaborators Seph Peters on guitar and Cathy Porter on percussion and other instruments -- several musical friends, including people you’ve met here along the music road before. Among the guests are the women of T with the Maggies from Ireland, and from Scotland Tim Edey, Corrina Hewat, and Dave Milligan, as well as Ashley MacIsaac and Patrick Gillis from Nova Scotia.

you may also wish to see
Cape Breton Music: Remembering Raylene Rankin
music of Canada
Scottish music a different way: The Unusual Suspects
from Donegal: T with the Maggies

photograph of Wendy MacIsaac at the Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow, made with permission of the festival, the artist, and the venue. It is by Kerry Dexter and is copyrighted. Thank you for respecting this.

-->If you'd like to help support Music Road,
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.

Best music, 2012

Music is one of the strongest ways to connect: to connect across time, across space, with friends, and with strangers. At its best, music is conversation with listening, speaking, and silence all part of the mix. It holds the immediacy of the moment and the wisdom of memory as well as the possibilities of what is yet to be. At a time of year and in a world which now and again may seem rushed, music also holds a place of peace and silence, thought and reflection.

That is what each of these albums offers. You’ll find music with intricately created poetic words and music with no words at all, songs and tunes arising from heartfelt and soul felt connect to land and place, family and history, faith and hope.

In some cases, the links will take you to place where you may hear snippets of the music, and in others links will take you to an article about the album, with links within it which will let you hear the music. I would encourage you to explore these. The albums are not ranked in any order, each of them well worth you attention. Take a listen.

The spirit of the mountains fills Kathy Mattea’s recording Calling Me Home. It is a spirit which encompasses beauty of the natural world, hard life of making a home and a living in the mountains, faith, resilience, history, and unanswered questions. Country Grammy winner Mattea has in recent years been drawn to the songs of her native West Virginia and the surrounding coal country, and to finding her way in to helping these songs speak to a winder audience. She does that here, with notable tracks including Gone, Gonna Rise Again, Black Waters, and Now is the Cool of the Day.

As they have taken their music across the globe through three decades now, Altan have collaborated with artists ranging from Nashville’s country stars to Dublin’s classically trained musicians. For The Poison Glen/Gleann Nimhe though, they decided to bring the focus back home to Donegal, their home country in Ireland's far northwest. Led by fiery fiddling and graceful singing from Mairéad Ni Mhaonaigh, the members of Altan offer ensemble works by turns lively and thoughtful on music from the tradition, original compositions, and songs that have crossed the waters and back again from Ireland to North America. Look out especially for the New Rigged Ship set, Seolta Gala, and The Lily of the West.

For her album Through Wind and Rain Cathie Ryan brings music that both crosses bridges and creates them, bridges between Ireland and America, between past and present, through loss to resilience and hope. The daughter of parents who emigrated from Ireland to Michigan, Ryan has spent time as an adult living in both countries, and thinking about how their traditions connect and intertwine. For Through Wind and Rain she has chosen and written songs that contain touchstones from her own life, from finding the courage and a spark of humor to cary on after change and loss to encouraging a child to the lasting value of friendship. You will hear a thoughtful storyteller’s heart in Ryan's voice and in the music and arraignments she’s chosen. Look out especially for Mo Nion O, In the Wishing Well, and Fare Thee Well.

Carrie Newcomer is a storyteller with a gorgeous voice and and ear for a fine melody, as well. Her album Kindred Spirits is part retrospective and part new material. To choose the songs, Newcomer looked back over her work with a spiritual focus -- and as ever with Newcomer, spiritual means a broad idea of matters of faith. Even if you are well familiar with her songs, you will find her choices here and the way she has set them in context with each other illuminating. There are several new songs in the mix as well, including the opening track The Speed of Soul, in which Newcomer offers a mosaic of images forming a mediation on time and the spirit.

Rani Arbo and the men of daisy mayhem take matters of spirit into consideration for their recording  Some Bright Morning too. “The wind in the trees is a mighty good teacher/ old mother earth she’s a mighty good teacher,” the four sing in Joe Craven’s updated take on the spiritual Hear Jerusalem Moan with which they open the album. Fiddle, percussion mostly on a collection of items including cookie tins and old suitcases known as Drumship Enterprise, guitars, bass, banjo, and ukulele are the instruments they bring along with their trading of well honed harmony and lead parts on songs including East Virginia, Bridges, and Will Your House Be Blessed?

Cape Breton, a land of mountain, forest, water, and music, is the source from which singer Mary Jane Lamond and fiddle player Wendy MacIsaac draw their musical ideas. On their recording Seinn they offer music which comes from the deep Scottish Gaelic tradition of the island and newly composed material which honors this as well. From lively dance sets to soulful ballads to quiet reflection in song and tune, you’ll hear the heart of Cape Breton in the work of these women, and hear why it reaches across boundaries of language and place as well. Look out especially for The Blue Mountain’s Lullaby and Keeping Up with Calum.

The geography of Scotland itself is shaped by its islands, and it is to them that Fiona J MacKenzie turned to draw inspiration for her album Archipelago. Through gathering contemporary and traditional material and writing songs and melodies herself, MacKenzie visits Scottish islands from Shetland to to St. Kilda to Ailsa Craig in songs that evoke the relationship of land and sea known by island people.

Caroline Herring well knows how to evoke landscape and history with her songs, as well. In her album Camiila it is the American south which is her focus, from stories of the civil rights days in the title track to a visit to Washington DC in Maiden Voyage to the land as frame and companion for hard times in Summer Song.

Alistair Ogilvy tells the stories of his people and his home place with his music, too. He is a native speaker of Scots (think Robert Burns poems if you are wondering what that is) and like Herring -- indeed like all the musicians you see here -- he brings a storyteller’s gift to his work on his debut album, Leaves Sae Green.Irish musician Caitlin Nic Gabhann tells her stories through the steps of her feet in the dance and through her concertina. On her album Caitlin she offers sets from the tradition as well as tunes she has made herself. A touch both clear and melodic leads the way through reels including the Flying Column set and the Leeside Sessions set, the waltz Sunday’s Well and the air Cill Dheaglain.

Sarah McQuaid draws on her time spent growing up in the United States, living in Ireland, and her current home base in England to find sources for her songs on The Plum Tree and the Rose. It’s a varied collection, ranging from songs of love and change to a tale inspired by a moment of reflection in Derby Cathedral to another sparked by a visit to Hardwick Hall to a round on gratitude arising from recalling the American holiday of Thanksgiving while living elsewhere.

Nuala Kennedy brings a varied geography to her music as well. The flute player and singer is native to Louth, that land of legend in the east of Ireland. She’s lived long in Edinburgh and recently spent time in New York and in the north of Spain. All of these come into play in the songs as tunes and arrangements she creates on Noble Stranger. She offers intriguing takes on traditional songs as well. Look out for her versions of My Bonnie Labouring Boy and The Banks of the Roses.

Every year in October, the people of Cape Breton Island invite the world home to share their music and to explore the ties that twine that music with the traditions which it neighbors and those from across the oceans from which it springs. The brothers and sisters who make up The Barra MacNeils created ten days of musical collaboration that resulted in ten tracks on The Celtic Colours Sessions.This finds the Barras in their first French language song as they join up with Acadian singer Ron Bourgeois, celebrating the origins of Cape Breton and their family name as they partner with traditional singer Cathy-Ann MacPhee who grew up on the isle of Barra in Scotland’s Western Isles, tracing an Americana and banjo based connections with fellow Nova Scotian Old Man Luedecke, and making fine harmonies with members of another well known family band as they sing with Shay, Michael, Mary, and Frances Black from Ireland.

Take your time to explore this music, let the words and the melodies move you as they will, and listen from the resonances and connections and stories which run through the work of these diverse artists.. Explore other work of these musicians, as well, perhaps here along the Music Road for starters. There’s more to be learned and enjoyed from each of those whose names you see here.

you may also wish to see

listening to Christmas: Shannon Heaton, Cathie Ryan, Mary Black, Hanneke Cassel

-->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 with any amount of your choosing. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

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