CELTIC CONNECTIONS 2009 – ON BBC ALBA
Cuirm @ Celtic, presented by Julie Fowlis
Opening Night - Saturday 31st January on BBC ALBA
Celtic Connections 2009 has returned to Glasgow for its 16th year and this year, you can enjoy a premium four part series from the festival, on BBC ALBA, Scotland’s new Gaelic television channel.
Bees Nees Media have produced an exclusive Celtic Connections 2009 package titled ‘Cuirm @ Celtic’ for BBC ALBA starting with the opening night, presented by Julie Fowlis, being broadcast on Saturday 31st January.
Cuirm @ Celtic: The Cape Breton Connection: 31 January
As Scotland’s Year of Homecoming begins, what better way for Celtic Connections to launch its festivities than by welcoming an array of top artists from Cape Breton, the beautiful Canadian island where Scots and their music have long found a second home.
Our Cape Breton visitors will be joined by some of the many Scottish musicians who have appeared there at the Celtic Colours festival. Artists include: Mary Jane Lamond, The Barra MacNeils, Jerry Holland, plus many more.
Cuirm @ Celtic: The Ceilidh Night: 7 February
The second programme on BBC ALBA is a double header with some of Gaeldom's finest singers. A traditional Uist Ceilidh features many of the Islands’ finest singers including Gillebrìde MacMillan, Margaret Callan, Màiri MacInnes, & Paul McCallum, while the Gaelic club Ceòl is Craic plays host to Kathleen MacInnes and Norrie MacIver as they offer up some very intriguing collaborations.
Cuirm @ Celtic: Salsa Celtica: 14 February
A stunning synthesis of virtuosity and energy, Salsa Celtica’s marriage of Latin American sounds with Scottish and Irish folk has been rapturously received at Celtic, jazz, world music and salsa festivals across the globe.
Assembled especially for Celtic Connections 2009, the Salsa Celtica Big Big Band features an array of guest instrumentalists encountered on their travels, along with Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis, performing a mix of brand-new material and fresh back-catalogue arrangements.
Cuirm @ Celtic: Daimh & Moonlighting: 21 February
Probably the most hotly awaited double billing of the festival. Aficionados of Irish music need only read Moonlighting’s list of personnel – Michael McGoldrick, Altan’s Ciaran Tourish and Dermot Byrne, ex-Solas guitarist John Doyle and Flook’s John Joe Kelly – to get very excited indeed. Formed after an impromptu session at Celtic Connections 2007, they’ve been described by The Irish Times as creating “an electrical storm that hasn’t been witnessed since the heyday of the Bothy Band”.
“If only all boy bands sounded like Dàimh!” wished the West Highland Free Press in a recent review of this prodigiously talented outfit, whose electrifying instrumentals – on fiddle, pipes, whistles, banjo, guitar and bodhrán – alternate with the soulful Gaelic singing of Calum Alex MacMillan.
This eclectic selection of concerts from Celtic Connections 2009, Cuirm @ Celtic is being broadcast on BBC ALBA from Saturday 31st January at 22:00 and each consecutive Saturday throughout February. BBC ALBA is available on Sky channel 168 and on Freesat channel 110.