Celtic Connections 2012
...and so to bed - Celtic Connections 2012 - End of Festival Review by Campbell Cameron
Gerry Rafferty Remembered: Bring it on Home - Celtic Connections Review by Pauline Keightley
Thursday 19th January - Sunday 5th February 2012
Celtic Connections festival includes some of the biggest names in folk, roots, world, traditional, indie, Americana, bluegrass and jazz. The festival will take place in Glasgow and run between 19 January and 5 February 2012 and is sponsored by ScottishPower. The festival will see around 2100 artists from around the world taking part in 300 events and 20 venues across Glasgow over 18 days. Celtic Connections is programmed and promoted by Glasgow Life. New venues for the 2012 festival include the Mitchell Theatre, Brel, St Mary's Cathedral, Platform and Apollo 23 - the new home of the Celtic Connections Festival Club.
Celtic Connections 2012 Events and tickets
Loads of great acts, late club and festival club and Danny Kyle Open Stage.
Danny Kyle's Open Stage
From Sat 21 January, 5:00pm - 7 p.m. Nightly
Free
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Exhibition Hall
Hosted by Danny Kyle's good friend Liz Clark, the Open Stage is a chance to see new musical talent as they try to win a coveted support slot at next year's festival - and all absolutely free!
Celtic Connection Ceilidh Dances
Transatlantic Sessions
Thu 2 February, 7:30pm
£28, £25
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Main Auditorium
If it ain't broke, don't fix it: like its similarly long-running TV counterpart, the Transatlantic Sessions at Celtic Connections has grown into a treasured and world-famous musical institution, latterly spinning off into a phenomenally successful touring project. The organically-evolved secret ingredient is the balance between comfy-old-furniture, kick-back- and-cut-loose familiarity and thrilling novelty - thrilling equally for first-time guest stars, discovering this uniquely auspicious yet intimate camaraderie onstage; for the house-band regulars, getting the chance to play with an annual array of heroes and favourites, and for each year's sellout audience.
Talking of sellouts, Raul Malo's sensational headline ABC show was widely raved-about as a top highlight of Celtic Connections 2011, and we're delighted to welcome him back for his third consecutive festival visit, and his first Transatlantic Sessions. Malo's decade-long, post- Mavericks solo career, starting back touring small clubs by car, attained its latest triumphant fruition with his 2010 album Sinners & Saints, a deeply soulful distillation of his Latin heritage with a wide-ranging love of country, blues, jazz and vintage rock'n'roll. He joins tonight's distinguished guests ahead of the Mavericks' recently-announced reunion tour, kicking off at California's Stagecoach festival in April.
While the Wailin' Jennys take a year's break, Ruth Moody, the dulcet soprano of that exquisitely harmonised threesome, is building on the fervent critical praise that greeted her 2010 solo debut The Garden.
Riding high on rave reviews for his recent third album Mag Pai Zai, which stripped its predecessors' glossier pop appeal back to subtler acoustic arrangements, Irish balladeer Declan O'Rourke joins the Celtic vocal team, along with Eddi Reader and Karen Matheson, while the Stateside posse also features Tim O'Brien, Darrell Scott and Bruce Molsky. Musical predecessors' glossier pop appeal back to subtler acoustic arrangements, Irish balladeer Declan O'Rourke joins the Celtic vocal team, along with Eddi Reader and Karen Matheson, while the Stateside posse also features Tim O'Brien, Darrell Scott and Bruce Molsky. Musical directors Aly Bain and Jerry Douglas lead the ever-stellar house band, including John Doyle, Danny Thompson, Michael McGoldrick, John McCusker, Donald Shaw and James Mackintosh.
Blues of the World featuring Moussu T, Pura Fe & John Trudell and Errol Linton
Thu 2 February, 7:30pm
£15
O2 ABC Glasgow
Setting aside Chicago and the Mississippi Delta's rival claims to blues-heartland primacy, this international gathering brings together artists whose lineage and traditions stretch from southern France to Central America, Native American to British Caribbean, highlighting the blues' rich diasporan diversity. For Provencal quartet Moussu T e lei jovents, singing in the ancient Occitan language, the interface is the their home port of Marseille, gateway to Africa and the Americas; for singer- songwriters and activists Pura Fe (of Puerto Rican and Tuscarora Nation parentage) and John Trudell (Santee Sioux/Mexican) it's the shared slave history of Native and black Americans. Brixton-born harmonica wizard and singer Errol Linton, meanwhile, infuses his blues with shades of reggae and ska.
Kathryn Tickell: Northumbrian Voices
Thu 2 February, 8:00pm
£13
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Strathclyde Suite
Lovingly created by Northumbrian pipes virtuoso Kathryn Tickell, in collaboration with award-winning theatre director Annie Rigby, this captivating words-and-music performance reflects Tickell's own formative experience of learning her craft, directly from relatives and other older players around her native North Tyne region. Transcripts from recorded interviews with these sources form the narrative element of the show, conjuring past and present aspects of Northumbrian life and lore, delivered by Tickell, her father Mike Tickell and Hannah Rickard. These anecdotes and dialogues are complemented by both traditional and original music, with Kit Haigh (guitar/piano), Patsy Reid (fiddle) and Julian Sutton (melodeon) completing the line-up.
Andy White
Thu 2 February, 8:00pm
£10
Glasgow Art Club
Belfast born and raised, Andy White has earned a global following for blending folk and pop stylings with a poet's sensibility. Working with the greats of Irish music - Sinead O'Connor, Van Morrison - and writing with Peter Gabriel and Neil and Tim Finn, Andy has won Ireland's top songwriting awards and toured the world many times over.
Laura Veirs and Support
Fri 3 February, 7:30pm
£14
The Arches
A very warm welcome back to Colorado singer-songwriter Laura Veirs, who last played Celtic Connections just at the birth of her acclaimed seventh album, 2010's July Flame, and shortly before that of her first child. With July Flame offering a lusher echo of her early acoustic arrangements, new release Tumble Bee comprises children's songs drawn from US folk tradition, some of them centuries old: in Veirs's words, "a sampling that reflects our richness as a people."
Omar Sosa and Ibrahim Maalouf
Fri 3 February, 9:30pm
£16
Old Fruitmarket
Joyously transcending the realms of jazz, world and classical music, the multi-award-winning pianist, composer and bandleader Omar Sosa combines deep allegiance to his Afro-Cuban roots with a boundlessly adventurous exploration of African, American and European traditions. He has worked with global music luminaries as diverse as Trilok Gurtu, Jacques Morelenbaum, Miguel 'Anga' Diaz, Tim Eriksen and Paolo Fresu, and released 22 albums as a leader. Justly renowned as a thrillingly inspirational live performer, he appears here with regular touring outfit the Afreecanos Quintet, featuring fellow Cuban Leandro Saint-Hill on saxophones, Mozambiquan bassist Childo Tomas, live drum'n'bass pioneer Marque Gilmore and German trumpeter Joo Strauss.
The Lebanese-born, Parisian-based trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf, who's worked with the likes of Amadou and Mariam, Sting, Salif Keita and Toumani Diabate, recently completed a triptych of albums with his new release Diagnostic, extending his creative conversation between Arabic music and jazz, classical, funk, Latin, electronic and even heavy metal sounds.
The Boy and The Bunnet - World Premiere
Tron Theatre
Friday 3rd February (2pm) - Saturday 4th February (7pm)
This ambitious new Scottish production receives its world premiere during Celtic Connections and is hailed as Scottish traditional music's answer to 'Peter and the Wolf'.
The Boy and the Bunnet unites the talents of Booker-nominated author James Robertson and pianist/composer James Ross. Robertson's Scots text, narrated by Gerda Stevenson, tells the tale of a wee boy who gets lost in the woods, and encounters an array of real and supernatural creatures, each characterfully conjured by Ross's typically imaginative, lyrical score.
Originally premiered in Aonghas MacNeacail's Gaelic translation at the 2011 Blas festival, this inaugural Scots performance again features Ross with Corrina Hewat (harp and voice), Patsy Reid (fiddle), Neil Johnstone (cello), Angus Lyon (accordion) Fraser Fifield (pipes) and Signy Jakobsdottir (percussion). Bring all the family wearing their bunnets and your family ticket will be £31!
TMSA Young Trad Tour 2011 and UHI
Sat 4 February, 2:00pm
£11
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, Strathclyde Suite
The annual TMSA tour by the winners and finalists of Radio Scotland's Young Traditional Musician of the Year competition has become a highlight of Scotland's folk calendar. Reigning Orkney fiddler Kristan Harvey lines up one more time with Lorne MacDougall (pipes/whistles), Tina Rees (piano), Alistair Ogilvy (Scots song), Mairi Chaimbeul (clarsach/Gaelic song) Andrew Waite (accordion) and 2010 winner Dan Thorpe, (fiddle).
To salute the University of the Highlands and Islands' official inauguration, an ensemble of its traditional music students and staff, directed by Anna-Wendy Stevenson and Rick Taylor, perform a celebratory programme including new compositions by Mark Sheridan.
Mary Gauthier and Darrell Scott
Sat 4 February, 7:30pm
£13
St Andrew's in the Square
After mounting acclaim for her five previous albums, Louisiana's Mary Gauthier won a remarkable sweep of critical superlatives with 2010's The Foundling, exploring her experiences of childhood abandonment and adoption. Rarely can such unanimity have prevailed between No Depression ("the most raw, brave and ultimately satisfying album I've heard in a very long time") and the Sun ("one of the most brilliant and heartbreaking pieces of music you'll hear this or any year").
Recently recruited into Robert Plant's Band of Joy, Darrell Scott reveals his romantic side on current solo release A Crooked Road, combining the songcraft behind numerous country hits with his own luscious baritone voice.
Treacherous Orchestra and Gabby Young & Other Animals
Sat 4 February, 7:30pm
£15
O2 ABC Glasgow
Treacherous Orchestra's previous Celtic Connections shows - both as the final night's final fling at the Festival Club, and since they graduated to the main programme - have already gone down in the festival annals, so expect something truly, stratospherically spectacular as this fearsome dozen-strong crew launch their long-awaited debut album. "A terrific party band, with lofty creative ambitions to bend traditional music into virile new shapes." (Scotsman)
Some fans have coined the term 'circus swing' to encapsulate Gabby Young's splendidly flamboyant, carnivalesque panoply of gypsy, punk, folk, jazz, indie and cabaret styles. Originally trained in opera, she fronts an eight-piece line-up including trumpet, trombone, piano, clarinet, banjo and accordion.
The Wiyos with Meschiya Lake & The Little Big Horns
Sat 4 February, 8:00pm
£16
Old Fruitmarket
A sizzling double bill of ultra-hot US acts breathing dynamic new life into Depression-era sounds. The Wiyos, named after a 19th century New York street gang, put a stylish contemporary spin on their self-styled mix of "vaudevillian ragtime jug-band blues and hillbilly swing", splicing it with strands of pop, rock and hip-hop. With their fourth album, Broken Land Bell, having earned them a tour support slot with Bob Dylan, they'll be previewing tracks from its forthcoming follow-up Twist, inspired by The Wizard of Oz.
"Not to be missed" (The Herald)
The sensational New Orleans-based singer Meschiya Lake, crowned as Best Female Performer in the 2011 Big Easy Music Awards, is spearheading a revival in swing-dance, lindy-hop and jitterbug music, belting out classics by the likes of Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington and Bessie Smith alongside richly seasoned originals, at the helm of a line-up featuring trumpet, trombone, sousaphone, washboard and guitar.
Vieux Farka Toure and Support
Sun 5 February, 7:30pm
£14
The Arches
The son of late Malian guitar legend Ali Farka Toure, encouraged from childhood by kora maestro Toumani Diabate, Vieux Farka Toure at once celebrates and transcends those formative influences on his new third album The Secret. Recorded in Bamako and Brooklyn, it further develops the guitarist and singer's distinctive, hypnotic amalgam of desert blues, rock, jazz and Malian sounds, also featuring vocalist Dave Matthews, Derek Trucks on electric slide guitar and jazz guitarist John Scofield.
UCS 40th Anniversary Celebrations with Special Guests
Sun 5 February, 8:00pm £16 Old Fruitmarket
A hand-drawn benefit gig poster, listing Donovan, Gallagher & Lyle and the JSD Band as playing in aid of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders' celebrated work-in of 1971-2, highlights folk musicians' vital supporting role in the campaign - which also famously elicited a £1000 donation from John Lennon and Yoko Ono. While shop steward Jimmy Reid may be best remembered for his "no hooliganism, no vandalism, no bevvying" admonition, another excerpt from his announcement of the work-in resounds still louder: "We refuse to accept that faceless men, or any group of men in Whitehall or anywhere else, can take decisions that devastate our livelihoods with impunity. They're not on." This special commemorative concert, 40 years after the unions' landmark victory, includes appearances from Arthur Johnstone, David Hayman, Tom Leonard, Jimmie Macgregor and Alasdair MacDonald, as well as a specially-commissioned work from composer Eddie McGuire, featuring the Whistlebinkies, a saxophone quartet and the young horns ensemble Alba Brass.
Celtic Connections tickets:
Online www.celticconnections.comBy phone 0141 353 8000
In person Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
2 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, G2 3NY
City Halls and Old Fruitmarket, Candleriggs.
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