CELTIC COLOURS
Festival ready to begin on Friday with plenty to do and see
Popular annual festival ready for another year.
Suddenly it’s the first week of October and the Celtic Colours office is a flurry of activity. The festival starts Friday and there’s still a not-enough-hours-inthe-day work-week ahead. Phones are ringing all over the place and voices overlap, some answering callers’ questions, others discussing details and finalizing plans. Deliveries of new festival merchandise are coming in the door, and boxes of festival guide souvenir programs are going right back out. The photocopier is never left unattended and there are signs of organization-in-progress wherever you look. Everybody seems to be coming and going in every direction, but everything is getting done.
The box office is buzzing and they’re handling it like the pros they are, happy to help with personal service and sound recommendations. It’s a very busy place these days, but they still have tickets available for concerts throughout the week featuring not-to-bemissed performers from Scotland, Ireland, the UK, the US, across Canada, and right here at home.
There are performers like Michael McGoldrick, John McCusker and John Doyle. It’s so exciting to have this trio of amazing players at the festival this year. Irish guitarist, singer and songwriter John Doyle has been here many times - on his own and in various combinations - and is well-known to Celtic Colours fans. His bandmates, master of flutes, pipes and whistles Michael McGoldrick and fiddler John McCusker, haven’t played at Celtic Colours before, but have been influential players in some of your favourite bands from festivals past like Flook, Lunasa and Battlefield Band.
You can still get tickets to see these guys in the grand opening concert, Friday night at Centre 200. They’ll be sharing the stage with Cape Breton favourites Heather Rankin, Còig, and Chéticamp dancers La Swing du Suête who are celebrating 20 years together; Gaelic singer Cathy Ann MacPhee and Scottish harp-player Patsy Seddon; and IVA, a mesmerizing throat-singer and poet from Rankin Inlet, Nunavut whose Cape Breton-Irish roots infuse her Inuit throat-singing and poetry. IVA’s innovative sound, a unique mix of her roots and influences, is both familiar and new and she is indeed an artist to watch for.
Another young group to watch for this year is Talisk. The fast-rising trio from Scotland has only been together for a few years, but they’ve been busy ones, winning awards and making a name for themselves at some of the world’s leading folk festivals. IVA and Talisk will be in Wagmatcook Saturday night for Pjila’si: A Wagmatcook Welcome. This concert, in the beautiful Wagmatcook Culture and Heritage Centre, also features Mi’kmaw singer, dancer and creator of the “Mi’kmaq Honour Song” George Paul, and local singer, drummer and guitarist Evan Googoo.
The concerts don’t start until Friday night, but there’s no doubt the music-making is already underway for this year’s festival, as some of Canada’s finest songwriters have been brought together for an exciting project involving writers from across the country. James Keelaghan, Bruce Guthro, JD Edwards, Cara Luft, Catherine MacLellan, and Lynn Miles are hunkered down right now at an undisclosed location in the hills and valleys of Cape Breton, probably by a lake somewhere, writing songs for Tuesday night’s Songs from Scratch concert at Our Lady of Fatima church in Sydney River. Get tickets while you can for this one of a kind concert.
And if you can’t make it out to any concerts this year, you can always check out the livestream. The crew at NovaStream sends a team out every day of the festival to capture a concert each night and webcast it live. The livestream starts at 7:30 p.m. and is available for approximately 24 hours at celtic-colours.com.
The 21st Celtic Colours International Festival runs from October 6-14, 2017, featuring concerts and cultural events in more than 60 communities all over Cape Breton Island.
For tickets or more information visit celtic-colours.com or call 902-567-3000 (local), 1-888-355-7744 (toll free). If you are in the area, why not drop by the Celtic Colours Box Office on Nepean Street in Sydney and browse the selection of merchandise on sale, including books, music, apparel, and hand-made craft items designed exclusively for the festival.
Local writer and musician Dave Mahalik has worked as Celtic Colours International Festival’s Information / Communications Officer for 18 years. His book about Celtic Colours, 10 Nights Without Sleep, is available from Breton Books, and his column appears regularly leading up to Celtic Colours in October. He can be reached at dave@celtic-colours.com.