Trad/roots: Nothing matches the variety and quality of Celtic Connections
One of the best music festivals anywhere, Celtic Connections is in full swing, albeit online, so we can at least enjoy a virtual visit to Glasgow to sample some the fabulous and hugely varied music on offer Oban-born Donald Shaw, artistic director of Celtic Connections Robert McMillen 22 January, 2021 01:00
Breabach, one of my favourite Scottish bands, who have played many times in Belfast. Picture by Archie Macfarlane
I LONG to Glasgow, dear old Glasgow toon… Well, that s certainly true during the month of January when I like to take a trip to the city on the Clyde for the annual Celtic Connections festival, probably one of the best music festivals anywhere in the world.
EVERY January and into February, Glasgow’s extraordinary Celtic Connections festival offers audiences a head-spinning panoply of folk roots music from throughout Scotland and the world. This year, with Covid-19 continuing to wreak its terrible havoc, the doors of the concert halls remain closed and the festival is unable to extend its legendary warm welcome. What it is able to do, however, is provide an impressive online programme, with new concerts being released every day until February 2. If Friday night’s Opening Celebration Concert is anything to go by, viewers can look forward to a brilliant, diverse and splendidly recorded box of musical delights.
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COME January and the post-festive gloom, Glasgow, in any normal year, comes alive with Europe’s biggest winter music festival. Every year Celtic Connections welcomes music lovers in their droves to its showcase of folk and roots music from throughout Scotland and the world. However, 2021, needless to say, is not a “normal” year. With coronavirus cases on the rise, and with mass immunisation a future promise rather than a present reality, the festival’s creative producer Donald Shaw and his team had to make the painful decision to shift their great live music programme online. They “left it as long as possible”, Shaw says, before finally conceding that a live festival wasn’t going to happen. It was in October, he explains, that they concluded that the Covid omens were not good.
Celtic Connections is going online a week today - for a 19 day festival By Louise Glen
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Updated: 10:19, 08 January 2021
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The Celtic Connections online festival will begin one week today.
Across 19 days, the festival will present over 30 online performances between Friday January 15 and Tuesday February 2 2021.
St Lukes. Picture: Gaelle Beri
World class concerts will be available to view online with some of the biggest names on the Scottish music scene and beyond appearing on screens across the world as part of the winter festival.