Celtic Colours online and in person

Celtic Colours International Festival is on 11 through 19 October, with concerts and community events all across Cape Breton.

Cape Breton is in the northern part of the province of Nova Scotia in Atlantic Canada.

That’s great, you might be thinking, but I am not near there at all...

However --> several festival concerts will be streamed on line. There is no cost to watch, but as the festival is a non-profit, you may want to consider making a donation to keep things going.

No worries if you cannot join at the time of broadcast, you should still have time to watch. In the past concerts have been left up through the next day at the festival's website and YouTube channel.

...and you will want to watch. Celtic Colours celebrates and draws on music mad on Cape Breton and from Scotland, Ireland, First Nations, Acadian, New England, and other aspects of Cape Breton heritage.

Artists from those places come to share their music, as do musicians from all across the Maritimes and from many other places in Canada as well.

Celtic Colours is known for its innovative collaborations as well as its respect for heritage.

Each concert is an ambassador concert of sorts: there are several acts on each bill. They each present a set on their own, and all join up to share in a finale. Sometimes, artists can’t resist sitting in with each other on the way to that finale, as well.

All this makes for concerts filled with heritage as well as filled with surprises.

There’s another surprise: there’s not an announced schedule of which concerts will be aired; what will be on is usually announced shorty before showtime each evening.

A word of respect must be said to festival artistic director Dawn Beaton, who puts all these collaborations together, and to the folks at Novastream, the Cape Breton based company whose people handle the broadcast of the shows. It’s no easy thing to shoot and direct live music, as I well know from experience; these folk know their stuff

Okay, but who might you see?

No guarantees, because, as mentioned, shows to be broadcast are not announced in advance.

However, a bit about just a few of the artists set to perform at Celtic Colours this year:

JP Cormier is a singer, songwriter and player of many instruments. The Cape Breton native will be at the opening concert and several other shows during the festival, including one which will feature JP and musical friends playing through music from his album Another Morning.

Mary Jan Lamond, also from Cape Breton, is a world renown Gaelic singer. Her friend fiddle player and step dancer Wendy MacIsaac joins her on stage at times; their duo album Seinn is well loved classic of Cape Breton music. This year, Wendy will be appearing on her own and as a memebr of the top rated band Beolach.

The three musicians who make up The Once bring top class singing to music which shows influences of Ireland, Scotland, Americana, and bluegrass over from their home base in Newfoundland.

Speaking of Americana, Jay Ungar and Molly Mason return to Celtic Colours with the decades of musical stories to share through song and tune; also from the US, Molly Shawn Scanlan and Connor Hearn as the duo Rakish walk the line between folk and classical as they make their Celtic Colours debut on fiddle and guitar.

You may find Dawn Beaton playing the fiddle, as well as playing keyboards and dancing. Often she on her siter Margie perform as a duo. Their heritage and practice in music inform their off stage creative practices as well, Dawn as artists director of Celtic Colours and Margie is in charge of school and college reatiosn and marketing at The Gaelic College.

Rose Morrison grew up and began her music career on Cape Breton. After some eyears living away, she’s returned, expanding her renown as a fiddle player to include songwriting and singing.

First Nations artists are always part of Celctic Colours, from drum circle members to dancers to fiddle players to songwriters this year Alex Kusturok of the Metis tradtion and Morgan Toney, who connects his Mi'kmaq heritage with Cape Breton style are among those from First Nations taking part.

Ireland is always well represented at Celtic Colours. John Doyle, Mick McCauley, and Oisin McAuley form u a trio to bring song and story from Dublin, Donegal, and Kilkenny to Cape Breton.

Cape Breton has strong connections to Scotland; it is one of the few places outside the Highlands and Island of Scotland where you will fidn Gaelic in daily use. It is natural then, that artists from Scotland always form a highy anticiapted and enjoyed aspect f Celtic Colours.

Among those joining in this year: top guitarist (she handles other instruments and is a singer, composer, and producer as well) Anna Massie; lengendary songwriter Archie Fisher; rising fiddle masyer Ryan Young; awatfd winning Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis ever creative five piece band Breabach, with special guest Moynihan joining in.

There;s msuch more to be explored, and there will no doubt be surprise in store as well as familiar friends to meet again in the broadcast concerts, or,if you have the opportunity, in person.

You may also wish to see
Brush you your knowledge of Cape Breton music
Venues on Cape Breton where you can find traditional music

Photographs: Julie Fowlis and Mary Jane Lamond courtesy of Celtic Colours; John Doyle by Kerry Dexter; Anna Massie courtesy of Innes Campbell Communications

A way to support Music Road: you could Thank you!

If you enjoy what you are reading here, I've recently begun publishing an occasional newsletter at Substack with more stories about music, the people who make it, and the places which inspire it. Come visit and check it out!