CeltFest 2005: A Delicious Feast of Celtic Arts and Music
NANAIMO - Juno-nominated singer Eileen McGann attracted cheers from the crowd when, during her riveting Cowichan Valley performance at the Sunset & Stars Gala Celtic Concert, she stated that "Celtic music is a living tradition."
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DÒCHAS FINALE PIPERS: Close up of Calum flanked by Carol-Anne Mackay and Julie Fowlis, the two pipers in Dòchas.
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Nowhere was that more evident than during CeltFest 2005, on Vancouver Island, July 3-8.
The fifth annual CeltFest summer school was held in Parksville at Tigh-Na-Mara Resort, followed by Gala concerts Thursday and Friday nights featuring their renowned instructors.
The event attracted over 200 student participants from six countries, and approximately 1,500 spectators at the two Gala concerts, one held in the open ocean air of Rathtrevor Beach, and the other at Brentwood College School, at the state-of-the art T.Gil Bunch Theatre in Mill Bay. CeltFest 2005 participants were from as far away as Finland, Sweden, and Japan.
Directors Carolyn Phillips-Cusson and husband René Cusson, and dozens of hard-working volunteers, organized this world-class Celtic event of workshops and nightly concerts featuring four types of bagpipes, drumming, dancing (Highland, Irish and Cape Breton step), and many other instrumentals plus song.
In total, students partook of 27 different disciplines of Celtic arts. Among the dance faculty was Irish dance champion and Riverdance/Chieftains performer Cara Butler.
The Sunset & Stars concerts culminated the five days with performances of sheer brilliance. East Coast fiddler extraordinaire Kendra MacGillivray, accompanied by her brother Troy, served a string of hot Nova Scotia tunes including a 1935 composition by their grandfather, The Starlight Waltz, and were complimented by Irish dancers during their reel set.
Piper René Cusson gave a lesson in Breton and Scottish fingerings during a Scottish air, then performed his upbeat composition Wendy Goes West, a tribute to Cape Breton fiddler Wendy MacIsaac. B.C. artists Kathy Stacey on cello, Wendy Humphreys-Tebbutt on Celtic harp, and Sandy Jasper on whistles all gave superb performances, along with Dick Hensold, the guru of Northumbrian Small Pipes from Minnesota.
A powerhouse quartet of pipers Calum MacCrimmon, from Scotland, Alan Walters, from Vancouver, World Bodhran champion Martin O'Neill from Glasgow, along with percussionist Jamie Troy, Jr. from Victoria, delighted the crowd with a witty volley of tunes and cadence.
The crowning touch was when the Scottish band Dòchas, the “Up and Coming Band of the Year” at this year's Scots Trad Music Awards, presented a masterful performance, playing almost every instrument known to the Celts.
Singing and at times speaking in Scots Gaelic, they completed the evening with their own youthful brand of traditional music in every possible genre: jigs, reels and marches. Following a trio of champion Highland dancers which accompanied Dòchas in their final set, audiences were brought to their feet, applauding until they performed two encores!
CeltFest was recently described by an Island columnist as “a buffet of the West Coast's irrepressible tradition of old-country music in all its delicious forms.” Perhaps their motto “come feis-ing with us” should be changed to “come feasting with us.”
Next year’s CeltFest(Feast?) on Vancouver Island will be July 9-14. Watch the website www.CelticPerformingArts.com as 2005 pictures/2006 details are posted. For more information, call the CeltFest Information line at: 1-866-301-CELT.
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