Posts Tagged ‘celtic festivals’

Have you always wanted to go to Scotland or Ireland but just haven’t been able to?  Well now is your chance! 

For just $10 you and a family member or friend can enjoy one of five tour packages to Scotland or Ireland – winners choice.  The Williamsburg Scottish Festival, in partnership with Guardian Travel Chesapeake and Celtic Force Enterprise, will be raffling a tour for two on Saturday October 2 at the Main Parade Field closing ceremony. 

You do not need to be present to win.  Only 3,900 tickets will be sold.  All proceeds of this raffle will be used to pay for Festival Competition cost and scholarships of winners.  Here are the tour raffle options.  You do not need to make a choice until the day you win.

For more information, visit the raffle site: http://www.wsfonline.org/tour-raffle.org

This weekend Celtic Force is handling the entertainment for the Greater Greenville Scottish Festival in South Carolina.

This is a newer event that has grown quickly over the past few years and uses a couple of quality venues. This year will feature Albannach and Coyote Run, both favorites of the festival, at both the Friday night ceilidh (kay-lee), held downtown behind the Peace Center, and all day Saturday at the Entertainment Pavilion at Furman University.

Saturday is full of typical activities for a Scottish event such as highland athletics, pipe bands, clan tents, herding demonstrations, vendors and kids activities.

This year the festival welcomes as a special guest…Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex.

Check out the festival web site at www.greenvillegames.org  for details and schedules. See you there!

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Source: http://charlotte.broadwayworld.com

The Blumenthal Performing Arts Center’s Education Department will host a free “Get To Know The Show” event for CELTIC CROSSROADS on Fri., March. 19 at 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. at the Wachovia Atrium. The afternoon’s program will feature the participatory activities to help you learn more about Celtic music (and stories from the past and present).

All participants at the “Get To Know The Show” event will receive a flyer for a discounted ticket to CELTIC CROSSROADS at the Knight Theater on Saturday, March 20, 2010 at 8:00 p.m. Offer valid so long as tickets are available.

Get to Know the Show – CELTIC CROSSROADS – Wachovia Atrium (301 S. Tryon St., Charlotte, NC 28202)

12:00 p.m- Get to Know the Show program

1:00 p.m. – Get to Know the Show program

The Blumenthal Performing Arts Center’s Education Department will host two free “Get To Know The Show” events for TAO on Mon., Mar. 20 at 12:00 p.m. at ImaginOn and on Wed., Mar. 31 at 12:00 and 1:00 p.m. at the Wachovia Atrium. Japanese Taiko drummers, Yoko and Rocky Iwashima will offer a glimpse of their cultural history by providing a demonstration and participatory activities based on the traditional art of Japanese Taiko drumming. The World of Music Family Festival at ImaginOn on Sat., Mar. 20, 2010 is from 12:00PM – 3:00PM, but the Get to Know TAO will be at 12:30PM and at 2:00PM

For more information, CLICK HERE

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Source: http://www.ticketnews.com

Iconic singer-songwriter James Taylor will spend the majority of the upcoming spring and summer months on a co-headlining tour with Carole King, but he also has some more intimate concert plans set for the future.

The “Carolina on My Mind” songman has announced a special four-part “Perspectives” concert series at New York City’s famed Carnegie Hall, but fans will have to wait another year to experience it. Combining live music, guest appearances and discussions of his career, Taylor will take the stage on April 12, April 20, May 6 and May 9, 2011.

Each night at the Carnegie will have a different overarching theme, with special guests expected to step in throughout. The first evening will be a celebratory gala for the Carnegie’s 120th anniversary, followed a week later by an exploration of Taylor’s musical influences “from bluegrass and blues to Celtic music and church hymns,” according to the official program.

The first event in May will focus on Taylor’s instrument of choice, the guitar, with some of the musician’s fellow guitarists joining him onstage for a discussion and performances. The four-part series will end appropriately as Taylor is joined by his backing band for a set that spans his catalogue and highlights his greatest hits.

READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE

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Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk

This year’s Celtic Connections festival got underway this afternoon with 130 torch-bearers braving the snow and ice. Led by the Scottish Power Pipe Band and the city’s provost, the procession walked from Glasgow’s George Square to the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.

Events kick off this evening at the opening concert with a line up of fifty performers including Aidan O’Rourke, Carlos Núñez, Lau, Catriona McKay and Chris Stout.

On Monday we will be updating our Celtic Connections site with photos from the opening weekend’s concerts and don’t forget you can catch the Jewels Of The Ocean concert live from The Old Fruitmarket on BBC Radio Nan Gaidheal on Sunday (17th Jan) evening at 20:00 and also highlights from A Scottish Songbook at the Concert Hall on BBC Two Scotland on Monday (18th Jan) evening at 21:00.

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Source: BBC

By: Pauline McLean

Never mind 66 shopping days till Christmas.

There are only 86 days till the start of the 2010 Celtic Connections festival, and a fair amount of excitement at the launch this morning in Glasgow of the new programme.

Since his appointment three years ago, the artistic director Donald Shaw has pushed the world music element of the festival and he admits himself it is an important strand of this year’s programme.

One of his biggest coups is reuniting Ry Cooder with The Chieftains – who’ll perform a concert exploring Celtic and Mexican musical connections.

“I didn’t know there was a connection between Celtic music and Mexican music,” he admits, “but if The Chieftains say there’s a connection, there’s a connection.”

Negotiations to confirm the gig were only finalised in the wee small hours of this morning, with Ry Cooder, who toured Europe in his own right earlier this year, not keen to travel to Glasgow in the middle of January.

And although Donald Shaw admits the concert – which will also feature Cara Butler from the original Riverdance show and Mexican band Los Cenzontles – is something of a coup for the festival, he hands most of the credit to Chieftains founder and leader Paddy Moloney.

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While the Celtic Force Team was working in Williamsburg this past weekend, on the other side of the state of Virginia, Celtic Force had a presence at the Radford Highland Games.

Teribus, the band that caught many by surprise at Grandfather Mountain this year, delivered their brand of rhythmic music to an appreciative crowd. This mix of pipes, drum & strings is making their mark on the Celtic music world with their musicianship and energy. These performers are experienced and deliver quality shows. Check out more information and song samples at www.teribusmusic.com

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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

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/

http://www.killdares.com/

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