Celtic Connections 2021 Continues: What's on 27 January through 1 February

Traditionally, at Celtic Connections there would be more than 100,000 listeners enjoying the work of more than 300 artists across Glasgow city centre at this time of year.

As with most things to do with music, things are different this year. Different, yes, but equally interesting. Roots music from acid croft to Sudanese blues, generous helpings of music in Gaelic and Scots, song and tune from rising stars and established creators: it’s all continuing as Celtic Connections heads into the closing days of its 2021 edition.

Tickets, both all access passes and individual tickets (you can view events for 7 days after first broadcast) are still available and there are several no cost events too, including a programme for small children and one that is dementia friendly.

Highlights of what’s on offer 27 January through 1 February:

“Authentic, electrifying and unlike anything you’ve seen before... that’s the way we do it in the Western Isles” is how the Stornoway based trio Peat & Diesel describe themselves. A fisherman, an electrician and a delivery driver who only got a band together so they could play a couple of gigs down the local pub have been taking their rip roaring approach to wider stages-- this time, to Celtic Connections on 27 January.

Later that evening, festival favourites Cherish the Ladies offer their take on the music of Ireland.

From the Wild Atlantic Way in County Clare Joanie Madden on flute, whistles, and harmony vocals, Mary Coogan on guitar, Mirella Murray on accordion, Kathleen Boyle on piano, Nollaig Casey on fiddle, and Lunasa’s Trevor Hutchinson on upright bass recorded a special socially distanced concert for Celtic Connections. Kate Purcell, Don Stiffe, Bruce Foley, and Seámus Ó’Flatharta add their voices and David Geaney and Seámus Ó’Flatharta bring dance to a programme that is both innovative and classic. Sharing the evening’s bill with Cherish are the Scottish quartet Charlie Grey, Sally Simpson, Owen Sinclair and Joseph Peach, who are Westward the Light.

Remember the pipers of Tryst, who walked up Buchanan Street to open the festival? They’re back as part of of an evening featuring varied forms of piping. In their set the ten pipers of Tryst showcase new music inspired by the piobaireachd tradition. Also on the evening Finlay MacDonald brings together a local showcase of music focusing on the innovative Scottish and Irish bellows-piping traditions, and piping from BBC Young Traditional Musician of the year 2020 Ali Levack shows up as part of at set from Project SMOK, a trio who are at their most comfortable pushing boundaries across musical genres.

Transatlantic Sessions is always a top ticket at the festival; this long running collaboration between artists from both sides of the Atlantic features continuing participants including Aly Bain, Phil Cunningham, John McCusker, Michael McGoldrick, James Mackintosh, Jerry Douglas, John Doyle and Donald Shaw and an always a changing cast of artists joining them. This year festival favorites Euan Burton, Julie Fowlis, and Kris Drever will join from Scotland with Molly Tuttle, Tim O’Brien, Alison Brown, and Stuart Duncan chiming in from Nashville. Word comes that recorded performances from earlier years of Transatlantic Sessions will also be in the mix.

Finishing off the evening of 29 January, a journey to Quebec brings in music from Le Vent du Nord , Grosse Isle. and De Temps Antan.

At the weekend, workshops continue, as does Claire Hastings’s programme for under fives and their parents, along with radio broadcasts of the Danny Kyle Open Stage concerts on Celtic Music Radio. Presented by Liz Clark, DKOS has adapted to an online format in style: six acts from the festival long event go to through to the final broadcast on 31 January. Exploring ideas of home and place, Steven Blake’s New Voices commission uses found sounds and samples to weave lush textures around a simple piano spine.

Another final takes place at the weekend: the BBC Scotland Young Traditional Musician Award 2021 concert. Six finalists will offer sets -- there’s no charge to view this concert -- with song, harp, pipes, piano, and fiddle. Among Young Trad winners in earlier years are Gillian Frame, Robyn Stapleton, Emily Smith, Anna Massie, and Benedict Morris; many finalists have gone on to fine careers in music as well.

Innovative music drawing from varied roots traditions fills the bill on Sunday evening. Dean Owens’s gift for storytelling and the landscapes of the American southwest fuse in a set of music from his most recent recording. Originally from the high desert of Northern New Mexico, multi-instrumentalist Cahalen Morrison returns to the festival as a solo act with Americana based music. Rhiannon Giddens has electrified Celtic Connections audiences with her voice, banjo, and fiddle solo and in performance with the Celtic Blues Orchestra. She returns in creative collaboration with Italian pianist and percussionist Francesco Turrisi. Bringing creativity from Scotland to the evening is top singer and guitarist Kris Drever, who is a fine songwriter as well an a gifted interpreter of the music of others.

On Monday evening, it is the Western Isles and Gaelic language and music to the fore. A night of music and song from North Uist, celebrating the island’s musical talent and heritage, will see top artists including Julie Fowlis and Ellen MacDonald, the Taigh Chearsabhagh House Band featuring Padruig Morrison, Anna Black and Seonaidh MacIntyre, up-and-coming talents Eilidh Lamb, Robert John MacInnes, Doireann Marks and Fionnlagh Mac a’ Phiocair, and the legendary Duncan MacKinnon presenting a programme entirely in Gaelic bringing to life the language and culture which of the Outer Hebrides. This evening is presented by Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum & Arts Centre in partnership with the Centre for Island Creativity.

There’s more to discover as you explore Celtic Connections 2021’s digital first festival. Festival organizers and production crew from Beezer Studios in Glasgow are doing excellent work in support creativity and presenting the work of musicians. Celtic Connections is delivered by the charity Glasgow Life and is funded by Glasgow City Council, Creative Scotland and The Scottish Government Festivals EXPO Fund.

Tickets, schedules, and more information at the Celtic Connections website

You may also wish to see
At Wandering Educators From Glasgow, virtually: Celtic Connections begins
Music, Heart, Hope: Celtic Connections begins
Celtic Connections 2021: what’s coming in the first 6 days

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Celtic Connections at home: what's coming up in the first six days

Celtic Connections is one of Europe’s top winter festivals. It is one the Celtic music world’s major celebrations. From its early days in 1994 as a small event at one venue it has grown to an highly anticipated 19 day festival that welcomes more than 300 artists and over 100,000 attendees to more than 2000 across Glasgow.

This season, Celtic Connections is going on line, so you may join in right from home.

Events begin on 15 January and run through 2 February. All access passes are available as are tickets to individual events. Once an events has been broadcast, it will available to view for seven days. Details on ticketing and schedules may be explored at the Celtic Connections website.

I have been attending Celtic Connections in person for more than sixteen years now, and have also been paying close attention as plans have developed and filming has taken place for the events. There’s a sense of excitement -- and of accomplishment -- among all those working the events. For many artists, this marked the first time they’d been able to play with others in nearly a year, as lockdown went into effect in Scotland shortly after Celtic Connections 2020 concluded.

About that: Scotland is in strict lockdown as I write this, too. Film and television production, which has its own stringent pandemic safety rules in place, was allowed to proceed. Though it has meant some planned events couldn’t go forward, there is a full slate of what look tot be great events ready for broadcast. A reminder, too, as every announcement from the festival advises, be sure to observe health and safety measures if you should meet with anyone outside your household to watch.

All that said: What’s on? and what’s best to watch?

I’ve got a bit of advice on that. This article concerns events during the first six days of the fest. I’ll return with other stories on what is going on later in the festival run.

On 15 January, the music begins with the opening Celebration Concert. Word is that there will be a dozen acts taking part in the 90 minute show. The many strands of the music of Scotland in Gaelic, English, and Scots are always a major part of the festival, and there is always a strong international presence as well. With performances filmed across Glasgow music venues and from other locations around the world, this concert both honours and sets the stage for this. Fiddler and composer Duncan Chisholm, who performed at that very first festival and has taken part in many since, will appear with other top Scottish players performing as the Scottish Ensemble. Other artists on the bill include Ímar, Fiona Hunter, Kinnaris Quintet, Le Vent du Nord, as well as surprise guests.

The festival’s first weekend sees the beginning of the workshop program, with top tutors offering lessons via zoom to varied levels of learners on fiddle, whistle, and many other subjects.

Saturday evening the 16th sees two rather different programmes. Early in the evening Celtic Connections in the Community finds artists of colour living in Scotland with backgrounds in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean along with artists from the Roma community, offer their heritage music. Later in the evening, acid croft masters Shooglenifty celenrate thirty years as a band on an evening that also includes the Highlands and Islands fiddle quartet RANT, Paul McKenna’s often social justice infused music, the high energy of the Kinnaris Quintet, award winning traditional singer Fiona Hunter, and Amira Kheirs, whose music draws on her east African roots and desert blues.

Workshops continue on Sunday the 17th during the day. There’s the addition of a music programme for under fives and their families from top traditional singer Claire Hastings (there’s no charge for Claire’s programme. which she offers on Facebook each Sunday morning of the festival).

The first of a Sunday afternoon strand known as New Voices, in which an artist is given the creative challenge) to create an hour’s worth of original music begins with singer and songwriter Josie Duncan. Duncan is a thoughtful artist, “an expert in crafting heart-warming songs which delicately balance traditional idioms and a contemporary outlook” in one description. You may expect to hear songs in both English and Gaelic.

Griot music from Gambia, harp and fiddle and genre crossing music from Shetland, a jazz trio based on piano and a singer who employs jazz, soul, and pop in her work make for an eclectic evening concert as Sona Jobarteh, Chris Stout and Catriona Mackay, and other artists take the stage Sunday evening.

Monday 18 January sees the start of Blazin’ at Celtic Connections, as the award winning band Blazin’ Fiddles begins offering instruction on fiddle, guitar, and keyboards during the day. As evening comes, it’s dream collaboration as several of Scotland’s best loved singers and songwriters join up for a programme called Come Away In. Karine Polwart, Eddi Reader , Rab Noakes, Siobhan Miller, and Findlay Napier share music in a song circle from the banqueting hall of the City Chambers, Glasgow’s 18th Century Municipal building on George Square.

On the 19th, the Blazers continue their workshops, and there’s an online take what has become a welcoming strand at the in person festival, a concert designed to be accessible and enjoyable for people with dementia, and their friends and families presented by Catherine Tinney and Luc McNally.

In the evening, well loved and always creative band Breabach will play, Malian artists Bassekou Kouyate whose main instrument is the ngoni will bring his high energy band, Highlands harp player Rachel Newton will offer original and traditional music, Aidan O’Rourke at Kit Downes will share music from the 365 music cycle, and rising singer Katherine Priddy will join in.

The concert on Wednesday the 20th will offer a feast of top class music as well. Blue Rose Code, who is Edinburgh-born songwriter Ross Wilson, is a musician with diverse tastes at the edge of alt-folk. LYRE are a new group of traditional strings players Patsy Reid, Alice Allen and Marit Fält. Scottish acoustic troubadour Rory Butler recently released his debut album. Karen Matheson, known for her work as lead singer of the band Capercaillie as well as her solo albums, is well loved as one of Scotland’s if not the world’s top vocalists. She will be bringing well loved favourites in Gaelic and English as well as music from her new solo album due out in February.

Each evening’s programme offers a varied selection of music all on one bill.

If you’ve never been to Celtic Connections, perhaps choose one or two evenings or a workshop that sounds interesting. I’m thinking you will be back for more.

There is more. These events are happening in the first six days of the festival. Stay tuned for more about the festival here at Music Road, and explore the Celtic Connections website, Celtic Connections website, too.

Photographs of Karen Matheson bnad, Sibhan Miller band, and Aidan O'Rourke ensemble by Gaelle Beri; photographs of Duncam Chisholm and Eddi Reader by Kerry Dexter

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Celtic Connections: 11 Choices for the Third Weekend of the Festival

As the Celtic Connections Festival heads into its final weekend of 2020, there is a packed schedule of concerts and workshops.Artists from Finland, Mali, the United States, Ireland, and other places as well as musicians of Scotland from Shetland to the Borders will take part.

Early on Thursday evening, Charlie Grey and Joseph Peach will present work they created while on a sailboat journey to some of Scotland’s uninhabited islands, including the Shiants and Saint Kilda. The project is called Air Iomall/On the Edge.

During the 18th and 19th centuries more than 80 percent of Canada’s Hudson’s Bay Company workers came from Orkney in Scotland’s northern isles. As the Company marks its 350th anniversary, fiddle and mandolinist Graeme Rorie offers a new piece drawing on stories of these Orcadians, at the Mitchell Theatre.

Old time and American specialist Joe Newberry is well loved by festival audiences. For this return, he comes to the Strathclyde Suite at the Royal Concert Hall in partnership with Ottawa Valley step dancer, fiddler, and singer April Verch. It’s a collaboration at once high energy and thoughtful, which was a hit with audiences at the Celtic Colours International Festival this past autumn. Opening for them will be The Ledger, a trio project in which Findlay Napier, Gillian Frame, and Mike Vass, who explore a selection of Scottish songs drawn from a ledger kept by a Napier family connection.

At the Mackintosh Church, fiddle and guitar duo Hannah Fisher and Sorren Maclean offer song and tune as they open for a highly anticipated gigi from Isobel Campbell. The combination of acts should make for a Highly creative evening all round.

On Friday, the fiddles, guitar, and mandolin of Kinnaris Quintet bring their passionate and creative approach to string music to the New Auditorium.

Earlier on the Friday evening, Chris Stout and Catriona McKay offer an intimate acoustic take on their fiddle and harp music at the recital room at City Halls.

On Saturday, the four fiddlers of Rant return to the Mackintosh Church, where they recorded their recent album Portage. Svang, from festival featured country Finland, will open with harmonica music ranging from blues to classical.

Also on Saturday, Emily Smith and Jamie McClennan bring Americana influenced songs from their duo project Small Town Stories along with Scottish material from their back catalogue. They open for Dirk Powell, whose musical creativity includes Celtic, Cajun, and Appalachian music.

Sunday will find the band Rura heating things up at the Old Fruitmarket as they celebrate their tenth anniversary in the company of special guests.

Two Sunday traditions at the festival are in place this year, too. The finals of the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year will see six finalists perform. It’s always a great chance to celebrate Scotland’s rising stars.

The same could be said of another tradition of the final Sunday afternoon: the Big Sing. The third weekend of the festival is when daytime workshops focus on song. This year the two days will offer chances to learn songs in Gaelic, explore beat boxing, hear and learn song of Scotland’s places, pick up some lullabyes, try out singing in chorus and more. At the conclusion of the weekend, late afternoon of the Sunday, participants are invited to gather at the main staircase at the concert hall to share a song or two or three. It’s always good fun, whatever your plans for later on the final evening of the festival may be.

You may also wish to see
Scotland’s Magic Year of Coasts and Waters
Emily Smith: Echoes
Cherish the Ladies: Heart of the Home
Celtic Colours: Heritage and Heart on Cape Breton

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-->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

BCMfest: celebrating community

It all started with a conversation between two friends as they walked through Davis Square in Somerville, Massachusetts. Ten years on, the Boston Celtic Music Festival, which kicks off on 11 January, is one of the most creative and community minded festivals in New England.

“We were walking by The Burren, which is known for its great Irish music sessions,’ Shannon Heaton recalls. She and her friend Laura Cortese got to talking about how though their musics shared many traditions and values -- Heaton is an Irish flute player and Cortese a Scottish style fiddle player, both them internationally renown touring musicians -- they never ended up at the same sessions. They started to think about all the people they knew in common from Irish, Scottish, and Cape Breton traditions. “We thought, wouldn’t it be great if we could all get together and play?” Heaton recalls, “and I said that’ll never happen, we’re all so busy,” but the friends talked on. “We thought what if we throw a big party? and from that, what if we have a big weekend? then,what if we have a bunch of concerts? and then -- what if we make it a festival?” Heaton says.

“We weren’t thinking about long term outcomes back then,” she says, “ but what we did d think about, quite a lot, was the situation in Boston, and in other communities, where you have all these incredible traditional musicians, you have Irish, Scottish and Cape Breton players --, and we never meet or see each other. Yet our music, our communities, are so related we share so many values and experiences. So we had this idea, what if we could throw this big weekend party -- it could forge new connections. That was the big picture for us when we started the festival.”

It is a vision that’s worked. This year musicians from the traditions of Cape Breton, Ireland, and Scotland will share stages and projects and audiences, beginning with an opening night concert featuring compositions from three rising stars of Celtic tradition at historic Club Passim. That will be followed by what’s become a BCMfest tradition, the Boston Urban Ceilidh. “The Boston Urban Ceilidh is just so much fun. It’s probably the most participatory of all the festival’s events,” says Sean Smith, who has been a member of the festival steering committee since its second year, and played the festival as a artist. “You’ve got hundreds of people coming out to dance, not all of them necessarily experienced in Cape Breton dance or Scottish ceilidh or Irish set dance, you’ve got terrific music -- Laura Cortese and her Boston Urban Ceilidh Band have a rock and roll quality -- and Hanneke Cassel is often the caller, she has a unique way of directing people through their paces,” Smith says, laughing. There might be a parade between the concert and the ceilidh too. “Last year we had an epic parade,” Heaton recalls. “We had a piper on stilts. We went out into Harvard Square, and the busking percussionists on Harvard Square...the guys out there banging on drums, African drumming, they just joined in. It was incredible, it was impromptu, it was great.”

There will be plenty of chances for joining in through dance and song -- and maybe other parades as well -- during Dayfest events on Saturday. These will run all day at Club Passim and at First Church, and will include quiet acoustic interludes from musicians from the Celtic traditions, a sing along for kids, song circles where you can share songs or listen in, and jam sessions where you can play or listen, too and time to learn and watch dances. There will be a tribute to Fairport Convention, a concert by the guitar based group The Dead String Ensemble, a concert of Cape Breton songs and one of traditional and contemporary Scottish fiddle tunes, an hour that sees a mash up of Celtic music and surf rock, and a Cape Breton kitchen ceilidh. “There’s so much going on, I have to keep moving from place to place,” Smith says. “ Some of these performers I’ve seen before and others I’m not that familiar with, so I like to go around from stage to stage and build up all these impressions of what’s happening.”.

“This year is going to be a little bit of a celebration of all the things that we’ve done to date,” Heaton says, “so we’re going to have a lot of participatory elements --dance and music. We’ll have family events. Brendan Tonra, great fiddler in Boston, an older player and well known composer, has a new children’s book based on a tune he wrote, my husband Matt Heaton will be leading a sing along for kids, so we’ll have something for little kids, and participatory stuff for people of all ages throughout the day. We’ll have some of of our funny, fringey elements, there’ll be a tribute and usually a cover song slot -- and we will have parades!”

“The finale concert is always a big wind up,” Smith says of the concert which takes place Saturday evening at First Parish on Harvard Square. This year it will feature sections focusing the music of Cape Breton, Ireland, and Scotland, each of the three musical communities which have formed the core of BCMfest. “Each of them could serve as a concert unto itself,” Smith says.

It will make a fitting conclusion to a festival that’s all about celebrating the Celtic music communities of Boston and continuing to create connections among them. This year Shannon Heaton doesn't plan to be on stage. “I am going to be in attendance, just enjoying and watching the whole thing,” she says. “It cheers me to think that a collaborative, participatory, community minded festival like BCMfest has garnered so much support over the last ten years. I think it’s a real reflection of the type of music that I love so much, traditional music, and the values that are inherent in traditional music communities. This was meant to be a party for all of us,” she says, “and now we’re all throwing the party together.”

You may find out more about tickets and schedules for the Boston Celtic Music Festival at the BCMfest web site.
During the year, BCMfest also sponsors Celtic Music Mondays each month at Club Passim and participates in other activities. There’s information about those on the web site too. You may also want to check out the web site of Concert Window, where you may be able to see some of the events at Club Passim live.
photographs of Shannon Heaton and Maeve Gilchrist, and BCM Fest Parade by Michael Passarini, courtesy of BCMfest

You may also wish to see
Another Fine Winter's Night: Matt & Shannon Heaton
The Boston Celtic Music Festival: a look back

-->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.

Celtic Connections 2012: the music begins

January. Glasgow. Celtic Connections.

Celtic Connection's is Europe's premiere winer festival, and one of the top music festivals across the world. Both the Celtic side of things, with artists from all across Scotland, from ireland, the United States, Canada, and elsehwere in the Celtic world come to share their music, as do musicians from other traditions.

Celtic Connections 2012. The music begins...

with the Scottish Power Pipe Band playing to launch the first night of the festival, as the steps of the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall are lit with fire and music



















The fire continued inside on the first evening, as the main auditorium at the Royal Concert Hall was lit with music from Bela Fleck and friends.








More to come on this concert and others as the music continues.

photographs made with permission of the festival and the artists, and are copyrighted. thank you for respecting this.




you may also wish to see

Celtic Connections:
an overview of events at this year's festival, at Wandering Educators
Music Road: Celtic Connections 2011: images

and

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

Celtic Connections 2011: seeing music

Celtic Connections, held in January of each year in Glasgow, Scotland, is one of the world's premiere Celtic music festivals. There are hundreds of artists and listeners, many concerts and venues. Yet, with all that, the festival -- thanks to the good will of artists, listeners, organizers and venue workers -- keeps an air of welcome and focus on the gifts and connections shared through music.









these photographs were taken with permission of the artists and are copyrighted. thank you for respecting this

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Celtic Connections 2011: images, part two
Music Road: from Donegal: T with the Maggies

and

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