Blog

See you next year!

​The message was plain for all to see, the writing not on the wall but emblazoned across Jarlath Henderson's chest as he, Ross Ainslie and their band played another blinder at last night's final Festival Club: OH S**T, IT'S MONDAY TOMORROW - a message rendered even more apposite by the fact...

Final night fling

Massive congratulations to Glasgow’s own Paddy Callaghan, who was named tonight as BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year 2013, becoming the first accordionist ever to win the title, after a competition that each year brings new meaning to the term closely-fought. Even aside from...

Off stage antics

Unprecedented scenes outside The Barrowland Ballroom last night, as a euphoric sellout crowd left the building after an electrifying set from Old Crow Medicine Show – only to find yet more entertainment awaiting them on the street, courtesy of the six “guerrilla buskers” known as CC Smugglers. The...

King Creosote joins festival line-up

​It’s just been announced that as well as support act Emily Smith, tomorrow night’s Concert Hall show from those formidable Shetland ambassadors Fiddlers’ Bid will feature a special guest appearance by Scottish indie-folk troubadour King Creosote. With the band having previously been joined at...

Prizewinners and pants

​Hearty congratulations to all the worthy winners at last night’s Radio 2 Folk Awards – and to the Concert Hall team who worked their socks off, amid all the logistical pressures and headaches of live TV and radio broadcasts, plus umpteen VIP guests (though perhaps not as many as some of them...

Award winning folkies

​There’s something quite strange about listening via computer to a network UK radio show that’s originating mere yards away from where you’re sitting – but as the sound of Simon Mayo’s Drivetime reached the airwaves earlier, live from the Concert Hall, it brought home that the Radio 2 Folk Awards’...

All will be well

​By all accounts, the floods of tears at last night’s Michael Marra tribute show, All Will Be Well, almost rivalled the bucketing rain outside – though the former deluge combined as much joy and hilarity as sorrow at the great man’s passing last autumn. As many of its participating artists toasted...

The home straight

​As we settle/stumble into the home straight of Celtic Connections 2013, some of the festival’s heavyweight veterans are starting to gather ahead of the final weekend, including Tønder Festival director Carsten Panduro, fresh in from Denmark for this year’s Showcase Scotland event, starting on...

Tales of the middle weekend

​With no apologies whatsoever for a wee bit of sermonising on a Sunday, two very different quotations encountered during this past week somehow suggested themselves as juxtaposing texts. The first, appositely projected onto the backdrop to preface Duncan Chisholm’s wholly magical...

Strong willed

It’s good to see plenty of positive feedback flowing the festival’s way via Facebook et al, as with this post today from one of its busiest performers, obviously making the most of a rare night off - “Only at @ccfest in one night, can you see: Daimh, Sylvain Barou, Jason Singh, Soumik Datta,...

You're barred

​As the Celtic Connections team prepared to welcome Scotland’s Culture Minister Fiona Hyslop to this evening’s Big Burns Night Show at the Concert Hall (nice to know she’s chosen to celebrate Rabbie’s birthday at the festival: she can hardly have been short of invites, after all), there was quite a...

Late night craic and unexpected requests

In the absence of the Late Night Sessions this year, things have been relatively quiet as regards late-night craic during the first half of the week – with the honourable exception of Folkytown, of course – but there have nonetheless been plenty of happy gatherings and high jinks at the Holiday Inn...

Celebrations and CDs

​Many of you out there will want to join us in sending hearty congratulations to the Pathhead Music Collective, who were announced today as one of three community groups to win a Creative Places award from Creative Scotland. Comprising 15 leading folk and jazz musicians who’ve settled in the...

Folkytown fun

It’s amazing how fast good ideas can bed in: it’s only a year since the first ever Folkytown - a late-night midweek fringe addition to Celtic Connections, instigated by Breabach piper Calum MacCrimmon – took place at the Flying Duck bar, just along from the Concert Hall, but already it feels like a...

International indie-folk royalty

That was quite some gathering of international indie-folk royalty, singing and playing their hearts out on the Festival Club stage last thing Sunday night. After their main performance in the Roaming Roots Revue at the Concert Hall – by all accounts a magical and unforgettable night’s music-making,...

Devoted fans

​After all the travel-related trials and tribulations ahead of the show, it was great to see the RSNO both playing their socks off and evidently having a ball with Carlos Núñez last night, such that he declared them – having performed the same programme with various international ensembles over the...

Trains, planes and automobiles

As if Donald Shaw hasn’t had enough on his plate in recent days – besides the small matter of getting this behemoth of a festival under way, he was rehearsing simultaneously for not one but two major shows on Thursday and Friday – he’s also been dealing with the snarly logistical headache of...

Multifarious musical flourishing

Taken as a whole, last night’s opening concert and subsequent Festival Club shenanigans resoundingly encapsulated the multifarious musical flourishing that Celtic Connections has done so much to nurture over the last two decades. Perhaps especially for those of us lucky (and old) enough to be at...

Countdown has begun for Celtic Connections 2013

  With less than a month to go until Celtic Connections 2013, the Celtic Connections team, Scotrail and Scottish band Mànran hopped on a Scotrail train to entertain the weary winter travellers on the Highland Line. Passengers on the 11.40am train from Fort William were given a taste of...