A look at upcoming Irish/Celtic-related music events in Greater Boston

•The Rockport Celtic Festival – one of many gifts from the late Brian O’Donovan to Celtic music aficionados – takes place from Sept. 12 to Sept. 15, mostly at the Shalin Liu Performance Center in Rockport. Among the attractions: harpist/vocalist Maeve Gilchrist (also the festival’s artistic director); the Jeremy Kittel Trio; Väsen; Pine Tree Flyers (two of whom, Katie McNally and Neil Pearlman, also will have featured spots); Darol Anger; Bruce Molsky; David Coffin; Madelyn Monaghan; Joey Abarta; Logan Coale; plus special performances by Hannah Read and Liz Carroll, who will be collaborating with the Rasa String Quartet. You can read more about the festival here.

•The Brian O'Donovan Legacy Series at the Burren has an eventful month ahead, starting Sept. 11 with The Gothard Sisters. The Pacific Northwest natives (Greta, guitar, violin, octave mandolin; Willow, violin, mandolin, bodhran; Solana, violin, bodhran, djembe, percussion) play original music built around traditional and modern Celtic styles as well as world and classical influences, featuring Oireachtas-level dance as well as instrumental and vocal firepower (they boast other talents, too: Greta does the filming and editing for their music videos, while Willow sews the costumes they use in concert). Their 2021 album “Dragonfly” saw them adopt a more layered, sophisticated sound, their songs built around the themes of strength, courage, and resilience in times of hardship.

Singer, songwriter, and composer Éilís Kennedy will be among the performers featured this month at the Brian O’Donovan Legacy Series in The Burren, with a show on Sept. 18. A former LiveIreland.com Female Vocal Album of the Year winner, Kennedy is a fluent native Gaelic singer and speaker from West Kerry whose collaborations have included a stint with Pauline Scanlon as the duo Lumiere, who were part of the cast in the 2014 “Christmas Celtic Sojourn” production, and guitarist William Coulter. One of Kennedy’s undertakings was the 2020 album, “So Ends This Day,” a collection of original and traditional songs about different aspects of the life of whaling, inspired by and based on letters, characters and journals. Kennedy will be accompanied by local guitarist Adam Hendey; they’ll also be appearing on Sept. 19 at the Boston College Gaelic Roots Series .

Fiddler Sorcha Costello comes to the Legacy Series on Sept. 25. A native of the music hotbed of Tulla, Co. Clare, Costello grew up in a family notable for its love of the Irish tradition, including Costello’s mother, concertina player Mary MacNamara – the pair of them recorded the album “The Lady’s Cup of Tea.” Costello was schooled in the lyrical, relaxed East Clare fiddle style, but over time and travel has taken on influences from her many travels, as evidenced on her 2023 release, “The Primrose Lass,” which contains a mix of traditional and more recent tunes.   

Turning to a different territory in the Celtic world, on Sept. 29, the Legacy Series will feature Faltriqueira , an all-female group that plays music from the region of Galicia in Spain. While the band mainly utilizes instruments familiar to the tradition – like fiddle, accordion, darboukas, and txalapartas – their style reflects multiple and contemporary influences, especially their polyphonic singing arrangements; they’ve also experimented with electronics and string sections. It goes without saying that you don’t need to understand Spanish to enjoy them. 

Also at The Burren (though not part of the Brian O’Donovan Legacy Series), will be an album release concert on Sept. 17 with Boston fiddler Cecilia Vacanti . A classically trained violinist who graduated from the Berklee College of Music, Vacanti has turned her attention to roots/folk styles, working with Celtic fiddler Jeremy Kittel and bluegrass/old-timey musicians Darol Anger and Bruce Molsky, and explored jazz/swing as well. Vacanti also has branched out into the New England contra dance circuit, as a member of the band Kingfisher. All these influences and interests abound in “Earth’s Dark Shore,” her new album of original material. Her special guests will be progressive folk duo So Blue (Devon Gardner, vocals, guitar; Adam Gurczak, double bass), which earlier this year released the EP “Water and Waves,” with original songs that tell stories about “love, loss, and bad roommates.” 

•Club Passim in Harvard Square hosts the trio Kalos on Sept. 3. Ryan McKasson (fiddle), Jeremiah McLane (accordion), and Boston-area native Eric McDonald (guitar, mandolin, vocals) explore what they call the “dark edges” floating on the rims of tradition, including those of Scotland, Ireland, and New England, as displayed on their 2023 release “Headland.” In addition to leading the band The McKassons, McKasson – the youngest ever to win the US National Scottish Fiddle Championship – has appeared on three albums by local fiddler Hanneke Cassel [see above]. He also has played in a duo with McDonald, a member of acclaimed bands Daymark and Cantrip who has performed with Katie McNally, The Outside Track and Andrea Beaton, among others. McLane explored several genres of music before immersing himself in Celtic and French traditions; he also co-founded the much-loved trio Nightingale, a force in New England folk music for a decade. 

Read an interview with Eric McDonald here.

The duo Väsen, which comes to Club Passim on September 12, is one of the most influential purveyors of modern Scandinavian music, and their work has inspired many Celtic musicians and listeners. As teenagers, Olov Johansson and Mikael Marin would visit with older musicians in Sweden’s Uppland region, who passed along their knowledge and love of Swedish folk music. The pair later joined forces with Roger Tallroth, whose innovative 12-string guitar accompaniment brought a new dimension to the traditional repertoire: components of rock, jazz, and classical. Over time, the trio integrated its own tunes into the mix, while collaborating and performing with musicians from around the world. Tallroth left the band in 2020 to pursue other musical projects, but Johansson and Marin have continued on, their performances featuring the nyckelharpa and a variety of other stringed instruments including a silverbasharpa, oktavharpa, violoncello da spalla – and even a blue electric viola. They’ve recorded two albums, “Vásen Duo” and “Mellikan,” and later this month release another: their joint project with American trio Hawktail (Brittany Haas, fiddle; Paul Kowert, double bass; Jordan Tice, guitar). 

Genre-busting American fiddler Jeremy Kittel with his trio Kittel & Co. will play two shows (7 and 9:30 p.m.) on Sept. 13.  Kittel imbues his forays into Irish and Scottish music with jazzy, improvisational riffs as well as bluegrass, classical, and other styles. A former US National Scottish Fiddle Champion, he has worked with a wide range of artists, including local American Scottish fiddler Hanneke Cassel and Boston native singer-songwriter Aoife O’Donovan; he also was a member of the Grammy-winning quartet Turtle Island. His “company” includes Berklee College of Music grad Quinn Bachand (guitar) and Josh Pinkham (mandolin). In 2018, the band released its debut album, “Whorls,” which included “Chrysalis,” nominated for a Grammy (Best Instrumental Composition). 

(Väsen and Kittel also will both be appearing at the aforementioned Rockport Celtic Festival.)

Boston-area fiddler Jenna Moynihan will present a “Variety Hour” on Sept. 29, with assorted musical friends. Since arriving in Boston almost two decades ago, Moynihan has found numerous outlets for her versatile Scottish/Appalachian/Irish/Scandinavian-influenced fiddling, including an acclaimed collaboration with Scottish harpist Mairi Chaimbeul, as a member of unique folk-roots-pop quartet Laura Cortese & The Dance Cards, performing with the Hanneke Cassel Band and Seamus Egan Project, and as a faculty member at Berklee College of Music and teacher at various folk/acoustic music camps and programs. In recent years, she has also focused on developing an equally diverse song repertoire, which she shared on her EP “Five Songs.”

Closing out the month on Sept. 30 is Skye Consort and Emma Björling , which combines a “chamber-folk” vibe with a repertoire encompassing Scandinavian, Irish, British Isles, and French-Canadian music as well as their own compositions. Co-lead vocalist and percussionist Björling may be familiar to some for her work with a cappella Scandinavian group Kongero, which appeared at Passim last December. Sharing lead vocals is Seán Dagher, who also contributes bouzouki and banjo. The consort has a striking bowed-string presence with cellist Amanda Keesmaat, and Alex Kehler and Simon Alexandre on nyckelharpa and violin. Their most recent album, “Ode & Ballade” – which reflects the various interpretations of those two words in English, French and Scandinavian cultures – includes a pairing of the French-Canadian song “Un Ivrogne à Table” with the Irish jig “Foxhunter’s,” a set of Shetland tunes, a quite solemn take on the confessional ballad “Sam Hall,” and the maritime rouser “Blow the Windy Morning.”

•County Armagh uilleann piper and whistle player Conor Mallon will present music from “Unearthed,” his solo album of mostly original works, on Sept. 4 at the Irish Cultural Centre of Greater Boston in Canton. Mallon, who has performed as part of the inventive quintet Connla (which appeared at the Burren and the New Bedford Folk Festival in 2018), was the inaugural winner recipient of the ACNI/BBC NI Young Traditional Musicians Platform award; his other honors include senior County, Ulster, and All-Ireland champion in the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann, and the Uilleann Piping Scholarship from the Na Píobairí Uilleann Dublin. Accompanying him will be multi-style electric guitarist Paul Starrett; Fleadh Cheoil accompaniment competition winner Jack Warnock (acoustic guitar, vocals); and Fintan Mulholland (bodhran, whistles), who’s also a member of Realta.

Irish American singer Andy Cooney makes his (more or less) annual appearance at the ICCGB on Sept. 8, an event that also includes a dinner. Starting out as the vocalist with bandleader Paddy Noonan, Cooney has led a highly successful solo career for more than two decades that has included collaborations with the likes of Ronan Tynan, Crystal Gayle, and the RTE Orchestra, as well as with Phil Coulter and, more recently, as one-third of the New York Tenors with Daniel Rodriquez and Christopher Macchio. Boasting a catalogue of material that extends to country as well as traditional, folk, and contemporary Irish music, Cooney has recorded 20 albums and a raft of singles, including his own “My Rose of Ballinrobe” and “Come Tennessee Me Tonight,” in collaboration with country singer Larry Gatlin. 

Galway native Seán Keane, one of Ireland’s most accomplished singers from the 1990s on, will be at the ICCGB on Sept. 20. Keane comes from a distinguished sean-nos singing family tradition that includes his sister Dolores and aunts Rita and Sarah, and by his teens had garnered 13 All-Ireland Fleadh Cheoil medals. After performing with bands such as Reel Union (with Dolores and accordionist Máirtín O’Connor) and Arcady (with Sharon Shannon, Frances Black, and Johnny “Ringo” McDonough), Keane struck out on his own, with plenty of accolades (including three Best Male Folk Performer awards from Irish Music Magazine) and critically acclaimed and best-selling albums as a result. His repertoire ranges from traditional to pop, blues, and country, including his moving rendition of Brendan Graham’s immigrant saga “Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears” – a theme of great importance to Keane, who in 2020 became an ambassador to Safe Home Ireland, an Irish emigrant support service.

•The Langan Band, a fascinatingly earthy trio from Scotland’s Outer Hebrides, comes to the Crystal Ballroom at Somerville Theater on Sept. 22, as part of the Global Arts Live series. The band’s inimitable sound is built around the dynamic between guitarist/percussionist/namesake John Langan, fiddler Alastair Caplin, and double bassist Dave Tunstall, whose instrumental and vocal work unquestionably evoke folk tradition – yet simultaneously are of this era, as demonstrated on their 2023 album “Plight O’ Sheep,” featuring “Leg of Lamb,” a fond reminiscence of an improbable moment of bliss on the road, the powerful intimacy of “Sweetness,” and the crude playfulness (with a catchy 2/4 beat and an extensive narrative) of “Hills of Totterdown.”    

•The Young Dubliners – who aren’t related to the “original” Dubliners of yore – play on Sept. 15 at the Brighton Music Hall. The band was the brainchild of Dublin native and rocker Keith Roberts (guitar, vocals), who more than three decades ago came to the US, opened an Irish pub, and decided he wanted to focus more on Irish traditional music. Roberts recruited other musicians to join him as the bar’s Saturday night band, blending their various influences – including Thin Lizzy, The Pogues and The Waterboys – and interests with a healthy dollop of Irish folk. Since then, The Young Dubs (their line-up also includes Chas Waltz, violin, keyboards, vocals; Dave Ingraham, drums; Justin Pecot, guitar, vocals; and Ethan Jones, bass) have since gone far beyond their bar-band beginnings: touring internationally, appearing on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and “CBS Early Show,” and releasing nine albums and a DVD, “Home Movies.”