Celtic Colours Festival on Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton Island Transports Visitors to Another World
By PAMELA IRVING
Celtic Colours Festival is undoubtedly the most exciting Celtic festival offered anywhere, and we have been to many. When you cross the bridge to Cape Breton, you are transported to Celtic traditions stemming back to the 1600s. The rest of Canada is infant in comparison.
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| THE RED SHOE PUB, owned by Rankin Sisters in Mabou, Cape Breton in Nova Scotia. |
With autumn colours ablaze in the evocative landscape, and Scottish place names scattered across the map with little regard for country of origin geography, Cape Breton is truly otherworldly.
The opening ceilidh in Port Hawkesbury did not disappoint, with an all-star line-up featuring Phil Cunningham, Blazin’ Fiddles, Joe Derrane, and Cape Breton fiddler and composer Jerry Holland.
Hard pressed to pick a favourite, as all the performances were stellar, to my ear, Jerry Holland was the star of the evening. He possessed the stage with a solid, unflappable fiddle style that romped along to Marion Dewar’s piano accompaniment, pleasing the crowd of locals and international tourists alike with some of his most famous tunes.
The geographical isolation and cultural insularity of Cape Breton is said to account for the pure “Scottishness” of the music, but Donegal fiddler Liz Doherty, who did her PhD thesis on the evolution of Cape Breton fiddle, disagrees with this popular notion.
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| LIZ DOHERTY teaching an advanced fiddle workshop at the Celtic Studies Centre, Judique. |
“Cape Breton had its own influences, running parallel to, but different from the influences taking place in traditional music in Scotland,” Doherty told me in an interview. “There is a strong Boston connection here, with constant migration between Boston and Cape Breton. From Boston, came jazz influences which would account for a lot of the ornamentation in the piano accompaniment.”
This insight was very enlightening, as I was trying to ascertain what gave the Breton piano such flourish and complexity. Compared to Scottish and Irish style “vamping” (piano accompaniment), which is very sparse and clearly the rhythm instrument, Breton style piano is rich, with many embellishments, and so dominating it almost competes with the fiddle. The piano is equal to the fiddle in setting the tone and the “bounce” that makes Cape Breton music distinct from any Scottish and Irish regional styles.
The hottest event of the entire festival was the Fiddles on Fire ceilidh at Big Pond held in a volunteer fire hall sound treated just for ceilidhs. We drove down potholed back roads to get there, through a downpour that would give any Scottish storm a run for its money.
Wet and bemused, our hearts were warmed by the crystalline quality of Cathie Ryan’s voice – formerly of Cherish the Ladies – especially the nostalgic song she wrote about her Irish grandmother.
Andrea Beaton and friends revved us up with their fiddling and step dancing, but Liz Doherty and Friends blew the roof off (I’m sure they are still repairing it!) with traditional reels, like Gravel Walk and The Reconciliation, and newer compositions by her guest and mentor Dinny McLaughlin. The bodhran player kept the crowd in stunned suspense with a drum solo that takes “tweedy” right out of bodhran and puts “fusion” in its place.
The “pub sessions” at the Gaelic College in the afternoons were another highlight for us. My partner, Kenny Irving, is a Scottish accordionist and award-winning composer of traditional style music.
We went along to the sessions for the craic and to learn more Breton tunes, but the room fair jumped with Kenny’s driving style, playing along with hosts Breton fiddler Sandy MacIntyre and Scottish piper Alasdair Gillies.
We hope that the festival will expand the pub sessions to a bigger venue in years to come, perhaps even a real pub, to give the sessions more authenticity and ambience. The Red Shoe pub, owned by the Rankin sisters, across the island in Mabou, would be an ideal location. Though not an official festival venue, the Shoe has Cape Breton music, good grub, and is stowed out nightly before and after festival concerts.
Every night of the festival is rounded out by innovative mixes of surprise guest performers at the Festival Club in St. Ann’s Gaelic College. Last call is 2: 30 AM, but performers and punters stay on long into the wees. This is where it really gets down and people dance!
Other highlights: Blazin’ Fiddles rendition of Johnny Cunningham’s Murdo on the Moon; Old Blind Dogs, sing-a-long Take me home to Caledonia; and the pipers’ ceilidh hosted by Greentrax Ian Green. Look for the CD next spring.
These are just a few snapshots of a festival that does not give up. Events and workshops take place all over Cape Breton and each community takes on the responsibility of hosting events. The logistics of this alone are staggering, but every event we attended went off without a glitch.
We were there from the opening ceilidh on October 7, to the very last tune of the Festival Club at 5:30 AM on October 16. We returned home to Alberta infused with a Celtic energy we have never experienced before. Thanks to the festival organizers, communities and 900 volunteers who make it happen. We are still reeling.
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