As we’ve mentioned all along, we expect this trip to be quite unique. We’ll try to see as much as we can in the time we are there, but still have time to enjoy that time. Does that make sense?
For instance, our journey into the Highlands on Friday will take us by Loch Lomond and wind its way into the Highlands across Rannoch Moor, by Glencoe and into Fort William for lunch. The trip continues north from there and features some beautiful scenery and a stop at Urquhart Castle (1) on the shores of Loch Ness. This castle stood during the time of Wallace and was one of the most formidable of its kind. A giant step back in time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urquhart_Castle
We’ll find our way to Inverness from there, check into the Columba Hotel, across the Ness River from Inverness Castle (2) and prepare ourselves for an evening at Hootananny, http://www.hootananny.co.uk/index-2.php a great night spot with a performance by Ted Christopher, http://www.bannockburnband.co.uk/ one of Scotland’s busiest and most entertaining singers. (And close friend of David’s)
On Sat. we rise, have our breakfast and say goodbye to Inverness as we make our way to Culloden Battlefield. http://www.nts.org.uk/Culloden/Home/ We will stand on the ground that saw the end of a way of life for Scotland. A haunting place that stirs emotions of those that understand its significance, a place Big Davey said was a must see on this trip.
Did I mention that our guide for the Highlands and Culloden is Hugh Allison, http://www.scottishtalespinner.com/ (another friend of David’s) who is the former Director of the Culloden Battlefield. A writer himself, Hugh will be a great addition to our trip. I bet he will have some interesting insights and a few funny stories about Davey.
We leave Hugh at Culloden and head south toward our next evening’s lodging in Pitlochry. On our way there we will make another stop at Blair Castle (3). http://www.blair-castle.co.uk/ This is the home of the Murray Clan and is one of the busiest castles in Scotland. We will not be doing an inside tour of the castle but we will see the grounds and visit the ruins of St Brides Kirk, that is tucked away under some very old, very large trees. St Brides was built on a Druid mound and was constructed during the 1100s. Buried under the floor of the Kirk is Bonnie Dundee, one of Scotland’s strongest military leaders during the time of King James II & IV, who was killed during the battle of Killiecrankie, just a couple of miles down the road.
After an early afternoon check in at our hotel and time to catch your breath, we’ll head toward our evenings destination, a wedding and dinner at Murthly Castle (4) near Dunkeld. http://www.murthly-estate.com/page2.html We plan to be there around 4 pm to tour the glorious grounds of this 15th century castle in daylight then move into the 17th century chapel for the wedding of our good friends Randy Dedrickson and Susan Barry Hallenburg. We’ll have great music for the service featuring bagpipes, Susie Malcolm on harp and her husband, 2004 Scots Trad Songwriter of the Year, Jim Malcolm, singing and playing guitar. http://www.jimmalcolm.com/ The local minister, Rev. Bill Ewart (in kilt of course), will be officiating at one of his last services, as he is due to retire in April.
Once the service is completed we move into the castle for dinner and an evening of more great music. Jim will join us again in the evening and Scottish fiddler Pete Clark http://www.musicinscotland.com/PeteClark/ along with a pianist will perform and also play some dance music for us. Can you say ceilidh? (kay-lee)
I might also mention that our special guest for the evening (besides the bride & groom) will be the owners of Murthly Castle. Cool, huh?
So, there you go, four castles and a wedding. And this all happens within a 36-hour period.
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By J. Alex GloverSpecial to the Orlando Sentinel
Hear ye, hear ye, things are getting bigger at the 24th annual Hoggetowne Medieval Faire.
Event organizers are expecting record numbers of attendees at this year’s festival, which runs the weekends of Jan. 30-31 and Feb. 5-7. The event will feature more entertainment offerings including performances from the band Albannach, the introduction of acrobatic performer “Daniel Duke of Danger” and continued involvement by local renaissance fair troupe, the Thieves Guilde.
Last year’s attendance was about 48,000 and organizers are hoping that the event will reach 50,000 this year.
Albannach, a Scottish band that plays Celtic music will be performing both weekends of the festival.
Dan Looker, known as “Daniel Duke of Danger,” will also be added to this year’s entertainment schedule. According to his Web site dukeofdanger.com, Looker is a graduate of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College and has been performing a tour of renaissance festivals since 1993.
Hutchinson said of Looker, “He’s a real pro from the ren-faire circuit. He does all kinds of acrobatics and things and it’s just very fun and funny.”
Aside from the new acts, many of the performers from last year’s event will be back.
“When we get something that really works, we hold on to it,” he said. “Because these people helped us build this show, a lot of them, we don’t fire them to bring in someone new.”
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Due to last minute cancellations we now have 4 seats available for the Albannach Homecoming Tour to Scotland March 9-16, 2010!!!
This trip will allow you to see some of the best Scotland has to offer and there will be plenty of music and merriment to be had.
Stirling, Bannockburn, Glasgow, Inverness, Edinburgh, Loch Ness, Glencoe, the Highlands, castles, all will leave their marks. Featuring performances by Albannach, Ted Christopher, Jim Malcolm and Mickey Harte, in some of Scotland’s most interesting places.
This trip will be the experience of a lifetime!!!
For more information, visit: CLICK HERE!
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Source: planeteyetraveler.com
By Jon Rochetti
The Irish band Téada brings their traditional traditional Celtic and magical Irish folk music to Washington, DC for an Irish Christmas in America at National Geographic for the 5th consecutive holiday season.
The five-musician band plays many classic Irish band instruments, including the fiddle, button accordion, flutes, bouzouki (Greek guitar), traditional guitar, and the bodhrán drum.
Together, they deliver powerful and upbeat jigs, reels, polkas, slides, hornpipes, and other tunes in the classic Irish folk style.
The band’s fan base grew quickly and as a result, they won Ireland’s Best Young Traditional Irish Act at the 2009 Irish Music Awards.
Here’s a link to a video of Téada performing live.
For more information, please visit: http://planeteyetraveler.com/2009/11/28/the-magic-of-traditional-celtic-music
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![albawsf09[1]](http://thecelticforce.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/albawsf091-300x198.jpg "albawsf09[1]")
By: Donovan Murray
www.TheCelticForce.com
The sounds from the stage this weekend at the Williamsburg Scottish Festival matched the turnout. It was GREAT! This is the second year Celtic Force has handled the entertainment for the festival, now into its third decade, and the combination of styles and personalities of the performers left those attending with wonderful memories. The weather turned out to be fantastic (no rain, a little warm) and the full moon that delivered its smile on Saturday night topped off a perfect evening. Seems that a new attendance record was set as well. Those performing not only complimented each other but there were several times during the weekend that different artists joined others on stage for a once in a lifetime jam.
As usual the power and sound of pipes and drums delivered by Albannach had everyone moving to the primal tunes and screaming loud enough to reach Richmond. Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas wowed the audience with their blend of fiddle and cello that delivered listeners the passion and intensity of instruments that have left their marks on Celtic music history. Coyote Run, normally a long way from home, were pumped to be playing in their own backyard with sets that demonstrated their unique abilities, highlighted by tight harmonies and theatrical presentations, that took the audience to new places in the Celtic music experience. And when you consider that Williamsburg honors the military during their weekend, it was fitting to have the Air Force Heritage Aire Celtic Ensemble, based out of Langley, playing traditional and lighthearted tunes that showcased those individual musicians’ talents.
You know you have a good blend of talent when you see members of Coyote Run, along with Alasdair Fraser, join the Air Force Ensemble for a tune. To see the crowd on its feet getting dance step instructions from Alasdair so that everyone knows how to do a Scottish reel adds a special something to the day. Having local musicians such as So’loch & a group based out of the Green Oak Pub in Virginia Beach add their talents to the mix. And then Albannach invites Coyote Run & Graham Smith to join them on the final song of the weekend to end with a bang. That’s special!
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By: Eric Johnson
The Celtic Force
I was fortunate enough to spend a Friday evening in Milwaukee this year. And, while I’d heard so much about Milwaukee from friends, I can’t say I was prepared for the real deal. Even for a Celtic experience junkie such as myself, with 150,000 attendees, Milwaukee’s so immense as to be slightly overwhelming. Festival Director Barry Stapleton generously toured this “newbie” around the grounds, walking one end of the waterfront to the other. While glimpsing several acts (including the Screaming Orphans) from backstage, Barry briefed me on what it takes to hold this festival. That would be 4000 working volunteers. Now, that’s a festival!
Milwaukee Irish Fest is the world’s largest celebration of Irish music and culture, showcasing more than 100 entertainment acts annually at the four-day, 16-stage event at the Henry W. Maier Festival Park on Lake Michigan. Passionately committed to igniting a love of Irish culture in all people, Irish Fest teaches Ireland’s music, dance, drama, sports, culture, children’s activities, and genealogy at the festival and through year-long programming.
This year’s line-up included music from North America, Ireland, Atlantic Canada, and Scotland. Here’s a short list of performers: Gaelic Storm, Aoife Clancy, Natalie MacMaster, and Donnell Leahy, Scythian, Tommy Sands, Sean Keane, The Red Hot Chilli Pipers, Salsa Celtica,. Screaming Orphans, Drum, Pogey, etc. I found myself having to make tough choices between seeing great bands play simultaneously on different stages. In some cases, each of these individual bands would be a strong closing act for a festival other than Milwaukee.
Milwaukee Irish Fest also enjoys strong Celtic ties with the province of Nova Scotia and its Department of Tourism, Culture and Heritage. This year the festival featured a theme concentration of The Maritimes, billed as “The Nova Scotia and Friends Showcase,” welcoming nine entertainment acts from Canada’s Atlantic Provinces.
One of the choices I made was to see DRUM!, a Canadian entertainment production featuring 11 musicians, dancers, drummers and singers, DRUM! represents the musical heartbeat of Nova Scotia. Highlighting the four principal cultures of the province – Aboriginal, African, Celtic and Acadian – DRUM! fuses music, dance, poetry, video, rhythm and song, bringing together the tradition and heritage of the founding cultures of Nova Scotia, making it a unique and memorable experience. The Milwaukee crowd was inspired by DRUM! into a standing ovation of several minutes long.
So, that’s what I hope is a teasing glimpse into the world of Irish Festivals and the broader span of world Celtic music. Space doesn’t allow doing it justice here. Thanks to Barry Stapleton, as well as Kris Pluskota from the Irish Cultural and Heritage Center for making my first Milwaukee experience a great one. Thanks to the Killdares and Screaming Orphans for sharing with Rhode Island. And, with hearty encouragement I suggest you find out “what’s the craic?”
Check these out:
http://www.irishfest.com/
http://www.drumshow.ca/
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By: Eric Johnson
The Celtic Force
In the last years, we’ve noted an interesting and pleasing trend. Scottish heritage events such as Highland Games are not really limited to “things Scottish” anymore. Increasingly, we see a blend of influences from related cultures that could be called “cousins” to our own Scottish heritage.
Today, event organizers (and their audiences!) welcome contributions from all the Celtic-rooted cultures of Ireland, Wales, Galicia, etc. as well as even more distantly-related ones such as Native American and African-influenced. Celtic Force contributes to the trend by integrating a broader range of Celtic performing acts into our music festival lineups.
Much in the same fashion, Irish heritage festival events are expanding. Scottish-themed artists with whom we regularly work are increasingly booked into “Irish” events. Naturally, Celtic Force’s scope of interest has expanded accordingly. Recently, we’ve participated in several Irish festivals and thought you might be interested to share in our experiences.
For starters, simply said, Irish festivals are awesomely fun. In a Gaelic word, Irish fests are great “craic,” a phrase heard so often. “What’s the craic?” asking what’s delightfully fun in a high-spirited, often beverage-drinking, musically-oriented setting is a classic Irish greeting. That certainly tells you something about priorities of life!
Irish festivals are so welcomingly fun that attendance at the largest events reaches well over 100,000. This past month, we had opportunity to join in the festivities at two of the largest: the Milwaukee Irish Fest and the Newport (RI) Irish Fest.
Newport’s 3-day Labor Day weekend event, right on the picturesque Newport Waterfront, was a delight. It was the 13th annual festival here and it draws upwards to 40,000 attendees each year. Newport offers that broader Celtic variety of performing talent showcased on 5 stages of continuous music including names you should recognize. The lineup for 2009 featured the Tartan Terrors, Black 47, Screaming Orphans, Shenanigans, Town Pants, and Glengarry Bhoys, with headliners being Eileen Ivers and the Immigrant Band.
Also appearing at Newport were one group of artists with whom we work…The Killdares. You may recall seeing them a couple years back at Grandfather Mtn. Well, I caught up with them in their first-ever performances at Newport.
Over the weekend, The Killdares offered several inspired performances of their cutting-edge, Texas-infused, alternative Celtic rock music which audiences from all over the U.S. have come to appreciate. Talking with both Tim Smith and Brek Lancaster, they were quite pleased with standing-ovation results, having met many new friends as well. They even took in some of Newport’s sights including the grand mansions of America’s Gilded Age.
I also chatted at Newport with the Screaming Orphans, those delightful gals from County Donegal, Ireland. We first met at Bill Reid’s Midwinter Valley Forge fest, when the Orphans were on the program with our colleagues in Celtic madness, Albannach.
Well, just as at Midwinter, The Orphans, those 4 sisters named Diver, were definitely one of the highlights of Newport. They rocked the audience with their performances so much that headliner Eileen Ivers asked them back on-stage to share in her own closing numbers of her already sizzling set.
If you haven’t seen a Screaming Orphans performance, you’re in for an experience. The Screaming Orphans are four funny, high-spirited, musically-obsessed sisters with roots in traditional Irish music, flavoured with diverse set of influences ranging from Simon & Garfunkel to REM, strongly focused on melody-driven songs with pop and rocks strains. For a group of Trinity College of Dublin School of Music grads, their zanily fast-paced and staccato music accompanied with continual banter, are refreshing. It’s a joy to see them play, or even chat with them. And, in comparing notes, we know they’re already booked to come back for Midwinter.
Newport was a superb success, for sure. Then… well… there’s Milwaukee Irish Fest.
Part II coming soon……………
For more information check these out:
http://www.newportwaterfrontevents.com/
http://www.thescreamingorphans.com/
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Williamsburg Scottish Festival, www.wsfonline.org, is entering its 31st season and they have put themselves in the position to become one of the premier events of their type on the east coast. In 2008 we witnessed the move of the Festival from its long time home, across from the Jamestown Historic Site, to a beautiful, multi-functional facility just outside Williamsburg located on the Chickahominy River in Lenexa, VA. It also marked the first year that Celtic Force was signed on to provide the Celtic entertainment.
The name of the site is Rockahock Campground and it offers more then the name implies. Rockahock boast camping sites, both primitive and full hook up, but also cabin & yurt rentals, a great parade field, a covered permanent stage, separate banquet hall and roadhouse with plenty of parking not far off of I-64 between Richmond and Williamsburg. They even have what they refer to as year round residents due to the large park model community that sits on the backside of the property. There is even access to boat launches from the property. Rockahock also produces events throughout their season that highlights everything from Bluegrass and Country music to motorcycles and mini Coopers. Find out more about this wonderful location at www.rockahock.com.
The WSF Board of Directors has charged Celtic Force with providing some of the best in Celtic music talent from today’s market as a way to help improve the overall quality of the event. 2008 featured the lineup of Barleyjuice, Albannach, Rathkeltair and Poisoned Dwarf with David R Ross adding his Scottish historic perspective. These great entertainers put on a fantastic show.
This year we have another great lineup to present. Albannach will return along with David R Ross to deliver us the true energy of Scotland. We are proud to announce that Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas will bring their world-renowned fiddle and cello duo to the festival and we will add Williamsburg’s own Coyote Run to the mix. And if that wasn’t special enough the Air Force Heritage Aire Celtic Ensemble will be with us on Sat. to help pay tribute to the military and first responder guest that the event honors during the weekend.
You want to put Oct. 2 & 3 on your schedule it’s going to be a great weekend in Virginia!
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