Voices: Celtic Connections 2008

It started with the sound of bagpipes from the Scottish Power Pipe Band and in the light of torches carried by musicians, politicians, and music fans, and ended with a collaboration among players and singers from Scotland, Ireland, England, and America that turned the Royal Glasgow Concert Hall into the ultimate back porch music swapping session. In between were nineteen days of music, both Celtic and connected: in addition to the usual suspects of musicians from Scotland, Ireland, Canada, England, and the United States, there were musicians from Senegal, India, Serbia, Croatia, France, Bulgaria, Italy, Australia, and Russia among the players, as the Celtic Connections Festival continued its tradition of exploring, as its name suggests, connections between Celtic music and music from all over the world. And there was a band, from Scotland, called the Unusual Suspects, too.

In its fifteenth year of competing with Scotland's winter weather (this year, as is typical, saw mainly rain, sleet, snow, cold, and high winds) Celtic Connections this year saw more than 120,000 recorded attendances at more than 300 events, among them schools concerts attended by children from across Scotland. late night festival club jams attended by those who just couldn't let the music stop, and every sort of musical event in between.

A few highlights: the traditonal band Altan, from Ireland's County Donegal, backed so well by the Scottish Opera Orchestra and conductor David Brophy that listeners forgot the classical musicians were anything other than a big backing band. "Did you see all those fiddles?" Mairead ni Mhaonaigh of Altan asked, laughing

Maria Dunn, from Edmonton, Alberta, telling stories and songs of Alberta's history and of her Scottish grandparents. Dunn's mix of impassioned story and humor made the perfect opener for the very musical and very funny collaboration among three of Scotland's best known singers, Annie Grace, Karine Polwart, and Corrina Hewat [all shown to the left] in the concert hall's more intimate venue, the Strathclyde Suite

Catriona McKay, in a piece commissioned by Celtic Connections as part of a program which supports the creation of new music, presenting a work which integrated traditional music, original compositions, and recordings of the woodworking done to create her harp, played back from a computer

Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser and American cellist Natalie Haas in a truly inspired musical conversation between the small fiddle and the big one

Joanie Madden, flutist and band leader of crowd favorite Cherish the Ladies, joining the dancers for a whirl across the stage at the Royal Concert Hall

a double bill featuring Irish singers Cara Dillon and Luka Bloom, who drew a packed and appreciative crowd to the Old Fruitmarket on a night filled with sleet and rain

James Graham, Mick West, and Mary Ann Kennedy sharing songs of emigration and Scottish history in the brick walled listening room at the Universal Club,

and speaking of clubs, the Festival Club, where new Nordic trio Fribo rocked the crowd with an after hours performance combining singing in Norwegian, guitar and mouth bow from an Englishman, and highland fiddling. Steps away in a quieter area, Doris Rougvie hosted a nightly song session which saw contributions from fans, local and traveling musicians, and festival headliners including Michelle Shocked and Suzy Bogguss

an electrifying double bill at the ABC Club with The Greencards, who are two Australians and a Britisher who live now in Nashville and play progressive bluegrass and folk, opening for the Alison Brown Quartet, augmented by guests including John Doyle, Joe Craven, and Russ Barenberg

and that backporch collaboration at the main concert hall to end things, where Eddi Reader offered both a song by Robert Burns and one by Willie Nelson, and other players included Darrell Scott, Mindy Smith, Tim O'Brien, Aly Bain, Michael McGoldrick, Jerry Douglas, Alison Brown, Garry West, and John Doyle.

Glasgow's Celtic Connections festival is recognised not only as the premiere Celtic festival in the United Kingdom but also as one of the largest winter music festivals of its kind and a major event in the folk and world music calendar around the world. It's coming up again 14th January through 1 February, 2009. I'll have more to say about several of the individual musicians and gigs from this year here in future editions of Voices, as well.

But, perhaps you'd like to attend a show closer to home? I'd encourage you to seek out performances by individual artists, as well as festivals. for the festivals, a few ideas:

The Savannah Music Festival, which spans three weeks in March and April hosts musical genres from classical to Cajun to bluegrass to swing.

The North Texas Irish Festival in Dallas in early March is an outstanding gathering of Celtic musicians, as is the Milwaukee Irish festival in August.

The Vancouver Folk Festival and the Calgary Folk Festival are summer events featuring wide ranges of music.

A handy listing of many folk, roots, world and sometimes other genres of music festivals is here.

[The photographs accompanying this article are courtesy of the Celtic Connections Press office, and the artists. My camera was a casualty of this trip, so not able to shoot as I'd have wished]

You'll find music content from many genres and plenty of other music fans at Gather Essentials: Music. For more of Kerry Dexter's Voices columns, look here. It's published on Thursdays.

Kerry Dexter, Music Correspondent Kerry's credits include VH1, CMT, the folk music magazine Dirty Linen, Strings, The Encyclopedia of Ireland and the Americas, and The MusicHound Guides. She also writes about the arts and creative practice at Music Road and contributes to Fred Bals' Series of Tubes.