The Celtic Connectionsfestival started in 1994 in Glasgow, Scotland, and has since been held every January. Featuring over 300 concerts, ceilidhs, talks, free events, late night sessions and workshops, the festival focuses on the roots of traditional Scottish music and also features international folk, roots and world music artists. The festival is produced and promoted by Glasgow Life. Donald Shaw, a founding member of Capercaillie, was appointed Celtic Connections Artistic Director in 2006.
At the core of the festival is the Education Programme, which sees thousands of school children attend free morning concerts experiencing live music ranging from Burns to spiritual and blues. Celtic Connections also continues to foster new and young talent through its Young Tradition and New Voices series of concerts, and through the Danny Kyle Open Stage competition.
Every night of the festival, once the concerts are over, the late-night Celtic Connections Festival Club runs through to the small hours of the morning. No programme is announced in advance, and the club is renowned for one-off collaborations between musicians appearing at the festival.
History
The Celtic Connections festival was founded by Colin Hynd in 1994 to fill a scheduling gap in the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall's (GRCH) normally quiet post-Christmas period. Hynd's strategy was to create a wide-ranging festival spanning from traditional music to more youth-oriented music, and to promote it through BBC Radio Scotland. He succeeded in attracting audiences of 33,000. In that first year all the events took place within the GRCH building, and did not include workshops.[1]
The second festival in 1995 was again centered in the GRCH, and also took in the ballroom of the Hospitality Inn (later the Glasgow Thistle) nearby. 130 events were scheduled, involving more than 100 acts, over seventeen days, with over 50,000 admissions. Folk Roots noted the appearance of Alan Stivell and reunion gigs for both Moving Hearts and Relativity, as well as emerging talents Cara Dillon and Shooglenifty, and there was praise for the organisation and staff of the Concert Hall.[2]
In its 13th year (2006), 300 artists performed to over 100,000 people in the eight venues. However the ambitious opening event, involving Catalan theatrical group La Fura dels Baus and Carlos Nuñez, had to be cancelled due to "technical difficulties". A performance by Barbara Dickson and Isla St Clair was also cancelled, and Deacon Blue were included in the brochure but not booked. After the event The Herald reported a statement by Louise Mitchell, director of GRCH, that there would be a "shake-up" for the festival.[5]
In 2008, Celtic Connections celebrated its 15th birthday, with festival attendances reaching 120,000 and events taking place across 14 venues throughout Glasgow over 19 days.[6]
Celtic Connections brings in visitors from throughout the world and is an integral and vibrant part of cultural life in Glasgow, with the economic impact on the city reaching £5.8 million in 2007. The festival actively promotes artistic links and cultural exchange across countries, reinforced by Showcase Scotland which brought 200 music industry delegates from 35 different countries to Scotland looking to book Scottish bands for festivals abroad in 2008.
The 2008 festival opened with the Common Ground concert where many of the artists taking part in the event performed together. Donald Shaw, artistic director of the festival, spoke about the future of Celtic Connections as well as the 1,000+ acts and 300+ events taking place in 2008 exclusively online.[7]
By 2020 the festival included over 300 events spread over 29 venues, and reported attendance of 130,000,[8] with a maximum daily capacity of 25,000.
Shaw announced in February 2018 that he would be stepping aside as festival director, to be succeeded by Jade Hewat and a number of guest directors. He would remain as a "creative producer" responsible for special projects and one-off shows.[9][10] By October 2020 Shaw, under his new title, remained the spokesperson for the festival.[11]
Transatlantic Sessions was originally made for TV, the first series being broadcast in 1995. The concept was a set of traditional musicians from the USA, UK and Ireland being put together in a country retreat to make music, directed by Aly Bain and Jerry Douglas. The Transatlantic Sessions concert at Celtic Connections also includes traditional musicians from the same countries and occasionally others, and has a house band, usually the same musicians each year, plus about five guest musicians. The feature first appeared at the festival in 2004, and has occurred annually since. It is usually staged twice in the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, and is "always one of the fastest sell-outs".[15]
A one-off show to celebrate the 70th birthday of Bob Dylan was staged as part of Celtic Connections 2011, led by Roddy Hart & The Lonesome Fire featuring Rosanne Cash. The following year Rab Noakes organised a tribute to his friend the late Gerry Rafferty, which also featured Roddy Hart and the Lonesome Fire. From 2013, the Roaming Roots Revue became an annual feature of the festival. Curated by Roddy Hart & The Lonesome Fire, it features a cast of guest artists collaborating to create a one-off performance around a chosen theme. For example, in 2019, the theme was the 50th anniversary of The Beatles' album Abbey Road, and featured KT Tunstall. The Staves, and Phil Campbell (of The Temperance Movement) as well as Roddy Hart and a full orchestra. Other themes have been the music of Laurel Canyon and a celebration of Bruce Springsteen.[18][19]
Emerging talent
The festival seeks to promote emerging talent through a number of recurring strands.
New Voices is an award for emerging composers made by the Celtic Connections festival annually since 1998. It is a musical commission which enables recipients to compose and perform a significant new suite of music of about forty-five minutes, based on traditional themes. Usually there are three commissions each year, with each composer performing their work at a lunchtime concert on one of the three Sundays of the festival. The funding provides for the musician both to develop the work, and to direct its performance, typically by five to ten musicians, at its première. In the earlier years, the composer was invited to further develop the work and revisit it at the festival the next year, but this is no longer practised.[20][21]
The selection process for the commissions is informal. Sometimes a musician may approach the festival with an idea for a new work, other times festival director Donald Shaw proposes participation to a musician he thinks would benefit and create something worthwhile.[22]
Various sponsors have supported New Voices over the years. In 2020 the awards were sponsored by the Scottish edition of The Times and Sunday Times, and the composers were Marit Fält, Pàdruig Morrison and Catriona Price.[23]
Danny Kyle Open Stage
This figure of Danny Kyle is usually installed next to the Open Stage during the Celtic Connections festival.
The Open Stage is a showcase and competition for emerging talent, which takes place almost daily through the festival in the late afternoon, with free entry to the public. Five competitors, solo or bands, play a short set, and the six best acts from the series are invited to a final competition on the last day of the festival. The six finalists of the "Dannys" are offered support slots at the next year's festival. All the concerts are broadcast live on Celtic Music Radio.
Since 2015, a series of free lunchtime concerts under the title Celtic Connections on Campus has taken place in the Students Association building of Glasgow Caledonian University. These concerts are part of the festival, but are entirely organised by the staff and students of GCU's Audio Technology and Audio Systems Engineering degree. Performers must be current students at college, university or school, or recent graduates. The concerts are broadcast live on Celtic Music Radio.[27][28]
The education programme has run since 1999, and by 2020 had involved over 200,000 children from all over Scotland. Each year about 15,000 children attend free concerts in the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall by artists performing at the festival; often this is a child's first experience of live music. Workshops are run within schools for another 2,000 children, offering tastes of traditional arts, including song, storytelling, dance and instrumental music.[30][31]
Showcase Scotland
Showcase Scotland is the largest music industry event in Scotland. It generally runs during the final weekend of Celtic Connections, and promotes Scottish and visiting artists to an audience of promoters, artistic directors and record industry people. It is supported by Creative Scotland.[32]
Broadcast coverage
Celtic Music Radio is based in the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall during the festival, broadcasting around seven hours of live material from the venue every day. This includes interviews with performers, reviews and previews of gigs, and live coverage of concerts, including every act on the Danny Kyle Open Stage.
BBC Radio Scotland provides extensive coverage, and many features have also been broadcast on Radio Borders. Highlights are broadcast on national station BBC Radio 2 and in BBC ALBA's occasional series Seirm and Cuirm @ Celtic.[33]
Awards and recognition
In February 2004, Celtic Connections was presented by Robin Cook MP with the "Good Tradition Award" at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, in recognition of its exceptional contribution to traditional music and culture.[34]
The festival also recently[when?] picked up a Nordoff Robbins Tartan Clef Award.[citation needed]
Flook is an Anglo-Irish band playing traditional-style instrumental music, much of it penned by the band themselves. Their music is typified by extremely fast, sometimes percussive, flute and whistle atop complex guitar and bodhrán rhythms. Flook is made up of Brian Finnegan, Sarah Allen, Ed Boyd and John Joe Kelly.
Richard Peter Gaughan is a Scottish musician, singer and songwriter, particularly of folk and social protest songs. He is regarded as one of Scotland's leading singer-songwriters.
The BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards celebrate outstanding achievement during the previous year within the field of folk music, with the aim of raising the profile of folk and acoustic music. The awards have been given annually since 2000 by British radio station BBC Radio 2.
Martyn Bennett was a Canadian-Scottish musician who was influential in the evolution of modern Celtic fusion, a blending of traditional Celtic and modern music. He was a piper, violinist, composer and producer. Diagnosis of serious illness at the age of thirty curtailed his live performances, although he completed a further two albums in the studio. He died from cancer in 2005, fifteen months after release of his fifth album Grit.
Fiona Karen Ritchie MBE is a Scottish radio broadcaster best known as the producer and host of The Thistle & Shamrock, an hour-long Celtic music program that airs weekly throughout the United States on National Public Radio (NPR). She also curates ThistleRadio, a 24/7 web-based music channel devoted to new and classic music from Celtic roots, and is co-author of The New York Times Best Seller Wayfaring Strangers.
John McCusker is a Scottish folk musician, record producer, and composer. He had a long association as a member of Battlefield Band beginning in the 1990s and was later a band member and producer for folk singer Kate Rusby. He has served as producer and arranger for various artists. He has also released several solo albums.
The Scots Trad Music Awards or Na Trads were founded in 2003 by Simon Thoumire to celebrate Scotland's traditional music in all its forms and create a high profile opportunity to bring the music and music industry into the spotlight of media and public attention. Nominations are made by the public and in 2019 over 100,000 public votes were expected across 18 categories.
Malinky is a Scottish folk band specialising in Scots song, formed in autumn 1998.
Donald Shaw, is a Scottish musician, composer, producer, and one of the founding members of the group Capercaillie. Shaw has composed for film and TV. In 2002, he won two Royal Television Society (RTS) awards for Best Soundtrack and Best Theme in UK television for the drama Crowdie and Cream. His score for the film Transition was BAFTA nominated for best soundtrack. In 2004, he composed Harvest, a commission for the opening night of Celtic Connections festival. He won the Scots Trad Music Composer of the Year award in December 2006.
Grit is the last studio album by the Scottish Celtic fusion artist Martyn Bennett. It was released on 13 October 2003 on the Real World label.
Lori Watson is a fiddle player and folk singer who performs traditional and contemporary folk music. She is the first doctor of Artistic Research in Scottish Music.
Celtic Music Radio is a Community Radio station in Scotland, broadcasting to the Greater Glasgow on 95.0 FM, Edinburgh on DAB+ and also worldwide via the internet. Celtic Music Radio is a Scottish Charity, registration number SC041172.
Roderick John Hart is a Scottish singer–songwriter, composer and broadcaster from Glasgow. As a solo artist, he has released three records – Bookmarks, Sign Language and Road of Bones – and one EP, The Dylan EP. Hart also releases albums with his band the Lonesome Fire, the first of which was the self-titled Roddy Hart & the Lonesome Fire produced by Danton Supple. Released in late 2013, the album was nominated for the Scottish Album of the Year Award in April 2014. Their second album, Swithering, was co-produced by Paul Savage and released in 2016. The band made their American network TV debut on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on 17 February 2014 and proved so popular they were invited back the following week to perform a week-long residency on the show.
Breabach is a Scottish folk music band formed in 2005. In 2011, they received nominations for ‘Best Group’ at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. They won Scottish Folk Band of the Year in 2012 and Live Act of the Year in 2013 at the Scots Trad Music Awards.
Skerryvore is a Scottish Celtic rock band formed in Tiree, Argyll and Bute in 2004. The band was formed by brothers Daniel and Martin Gillespie. The band is named after the Skerryvore lighthouse which lies 12 miles (19 km) off the coast of Tiree. The band currently resides in Glasgow. The band have released six studio albums, a compilation, and a live album. Now based in and around Glasgow, Scotland, Skerryvore have toured around Europe, as well as in the United States, the Middle East, and China. Their earlier work was inspired by the music of their native Scotland. Later artistic influences include rock, pop, jazz, Cajun, and country.
Zervas and Pepper are a musical duo from Cardiff, Wales, who formed in late 2007. They play as a two piece outfit or a full band, and have a strong and growing presence on the UK-wide live circuit and international airtime, including appearances at theatres and festivals such as Glastonbury Festival and Green Man Festival, and regular national radio appearances.
Roddy Hart & the Lonesome Fire are a Scottish seven-piece band from Glasgow, Scotland.
The BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician competition has run annually since 2001. It exists to encourage young musicians to keep their tradition alive and to provide performance opportunities, tools and advice to help contestants make a career in traditional music. Former winners include Hannah Rarity, Mohsen Amini, Robyn Stapleton, Shona Mooney and Emily Smith.
New Voices is an award for emerging composers made by the Celtic Connections festival annually since 1998. It is a musical commission which enables recipients to compose and perform a significant new suite of music of about forty-five minutes, based on traditional themes. Usually there are three commissions each year, with each composer performing their work at a lunchtime concert on one of the three Sundays of the festival. The funding provides for the musician both to develop the work, and to direct its performance, typically by five to ten musicians, at its première. In the earlier years, the composer was invited to further develop the work and revisit it at the festival the next year, but this is no longer practised.
Hannah Rarity is a Scottish singer and songwriter from Dechmont, West Lothian. In 2018, she was the winner of the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician award, and her debut album Neath the Gloaming Star was nominated for Album of the Year at the Scots Trad Music Awards in 2019.
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