Celtic Traditions: A Shop
With a Completely Unique Concept
By CATHOLINE BUTLER
VANCOUVER - Celtic Traditions (formerly Celtic Woollens) is a very unique shop in that just about everyone who works there, doubles doing something else...the people who work in the shop also teach music at Celtic Traditions.
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ANNIE BROWN, Lynn McGown and Michael Pratt are shown above at the Celtic Traditions shop on Tenth Avenue in Vancouver.
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When there's a concert at the shop, even the furniture and changing rooms take on double roles. Not only is Celtic Traditions a shop with beautiful Celtic merchandise, it is also a learning centre for Celtic music, and on the last Saturday of each month it becomes a concert venue.
The outside of Celtic Traditions has an old-country look with wide front windows that display exquisite sweaters, rich mohair and wool throws and shawls in the lovely vivid colours of Ireland, along with a traditional harp to set the scene.
On weekends when there is a concert in the shop, the window is cleared of merchandise to become the stage for the performers. The shelves of merchandise can be turned around so that they become part of the room.
The changing rooms double as storage rooms for merchandise, or warm-up rooms for the musicians. They're also used as music teaching rooms.
The shop can be transformed into concert venue for a concert in about 35 to 40 minutes with seating for 60-70 people. It's quite a unique concept.
Birmingham-born, Michael Pratt, whose father was from Tipperary and his mother from Leitrim, and Montreal-born Lynn McGown, whose grandparents were Scottish, are the proprietors at Celtic Traditions.
You don't have to talk to either of them very long to understand that first and foremost their passion is music. They have played and sung together as a duo for the past 30 years. Michael is a fiddle player and Lynn sings and plays the harp, and now they both teach music at Celtic Traditions.
When Michael and Lynn first opened their shop as Celtic Woollens, it was a much smaller shop on Alma Street and Michael said, "we also had concerts and then people started asking us if we could teach fiddle and voice training and it just grew from there.
"When we moved to our present location on Tenth Avenue, which is a much larger premises, we had room to open four rooms for teaching music. That's when we decided to change the name to Celtic Traditions. We now have over 100 students."
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THE EXTERIOR of Celtic Traditions.
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Speaking about the concerts, Lynn said, "actually, the concerts are very beautiful here at the shop. We have Celtic bedspreads that we drape over the shelves and put candles on them and with the candlelight it all looks very beautiful. We serve tea, coffee, cookies and home baked pies from Granville Island."
Celtic Traditions is your one-stop Christmas shopping venue for all those Celts or wish-to-be Celts on your holiday list. They have some unique jewellery, such as Celtic Lands by Sea Gems of Scotland which is particularly striking. There is also a great selection of sweaters for men, women and children.
They still stock the traditional Aran fisherman knit sweaters but much of the wools that they carry are the merino wool and the softer wools that people seem to prefer now. One particularly light-weight sweater that is almost gossamer in feel, yet has the warmth is made by Harley of Scotland, and Celtic Traditions have this sweater in some lovely shades for fall and winter.
Every Monday night you can listen to Michael and Lynn at the popular Wolf & Hound on West Broadway where they hold a Celtic music session. There have been up to as many as 70 people joining in their sessions.
This spring from May 20 to 24, Michael and Lynn will present a four-day residential Celtic Voices Workshop at Hollyhock Farm on Cortez Island, an educational retreat centre. For more information visit: www.hollyhock.ca
Celtic Traditions is located at 3754 West Tenth Avenue in Vancouver. For more information, call (604) 222-2299, or visit: www.celtictraditions.ca.
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