Arts and Entertainment
BCMFest (Boston Celtic Music Fest) will present a concert featuring the internationally renowned Irish band Lúnasa on March 8, 2025, in Somerville Theater – a new venture for Boston’s annual showcase of Celtic music and dance.
Ticket information and other... Read more
It’s fair to say that Adam Hendey, in a fairly short space of time, has become one of the more ubiquitous figures in the Boston Celtic music scene. Besides performing at venues and events like Club Passim, BCMFest and the Burren Backroom Series – now... Read more
Summer BCMFest will mark its first decade when it takes place on July 7 at Harvard Square’s Club Passim, with music from late morning into the evening from talented performers in Boston’s Celtic music community.
This year’s Summer BCMFest kicks off with... Read more
A look at some upcoming Irish/Celtic events in the Greater Boston area:
•Club Passim in Harvard Square hosts the annual Summer BCMFest on July 7, with entertainment beginning at 10 a.m. and lasting through the evening. Read more here.
On July 14, the club... Read more
“Yellow Face”Through June 23, Lyric Stage
Pulitzer Prize finalist David Henry Hwang muddles truth and fiction in this satiric semi-autobiographical memoir about a playwright plunged into a swirl of hypocrisy following his protest of the star casting of... Read more
Offering cinematic beauty, off-the-beaten-track experiences and transcendently beautiful coastal scenery, the Wild Atlantic Way has been one of the island of Ireland’s most successful tourism stories. 10 years on, it is as compelling as ever.
An... Read more
Reverie Road • When these folks formed up about two years ago, you knew the result was going to be pretty darn good: accordionist/flutist John Williams and fiddler Winnie Horan – two of the co-founders of Solas – along with fiddler Katie Grennan (formerly... Read more
A look at some upcoming Irish/Celtic-related music events in Greater Boston
•Fódhla, the trio of Medford fiddler Ellery Klein and Maine residents Nicole Rabata (flute, whistle) and Bethany Waickman (guitar), makes a rare and welcome return to the Greater... Read more
Well-traveled and accomplished Boston-based fiddler Mari Black and Nova Scotian fiddler/pianist Troy MacGillivray – one of the leading lights in Cape Breton music for most of this century – team up on June 20 at Harvard Square’s Club Passim for a special... Read more
This month's events include album launches by Pine Tree Flyers (May 5, Club Passim). and Louise Bichan (May 8, Brian O'Donovan Legacy Series), which you can read about separately. Here's what else is going on:
•Two fiddlers in the Scottish and Cape... Read more
New England-based Scottish fiddler Louise Bichan seems to have a thing about journeys of discovery.
The epic travels of her grandmother, Margaret Tait, through Canada as a young woman provided the inspiration and the basis for Bichan's 2016 debut album... Read more
There are bands – whether Irish, pan-Celtic, rock-n-roll, jazz, pop, funk, death-metal, or any other genre – that come together by circumstance or by accident, or even just for laughs.
Then there are bands like the Maine-based Pine Tree Flyers, a... Read more
Robert Frost is, arguably, one of America’s finest poets. The four-time Pulitzer Prize winner was born in San Francisco in 1874. Following the death of his father, he and his family moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts. He graduated from Lawrence High... Read more
A look at upcoming Irish/Celtic music events in Greater Boston
Guess these things just happen sometimes: By whatever twist of fate, this coming month includes an abundance of concerts with performers who have brand new or recently released albums.
•At... Read more
Quite a journey for this Belfast band, which started out more than a decade ago as a trio with uilleann pipers Conor Lamb and Aaron O’Hagan – both also playing whistle and flute – and guitarist and vocalist Deirdre Galway. By the release of their second... Read more
Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh has known for quite a while that she’s onto a good thing.
The co-founder, lead vocalist, and fiddler for the acclaimed Donegal band Altan, Ní Mhaonaigh began playing traditional music as a kid and has scarcely stopped since then.
“... Read more
At first glance, a theatrical collaboration between the acclaimed Irish playwright, screenwriter and director Conor McPherson, and American music legend Bob Dylan might appear an unlikely partnership. However, the resulting project, “The Girl from the... Read more
If it seems like a long time since Matt and Shannon Heaton last released an album, well, it is: not since 2014, when the local Irish music duo came out with “Tell You in Earnest.”
But in January, the Heatons formally launched their sixth recording, “... Read more
So, here we are, in what is arguably the most active month on the Irish/Celtic music calendar – especially here in Greater Boston/Eastern Massachusetts. A sampling of what’s coming up follows.
– SEAN SMITH
We’ll start with the Burren’s Brian O’Donovan... Read more
By Sean Smith
BostonIrish Contributor
The passing of Brian O’Donovan last fall has been felt keenly by the Celtic music community in the Boston area and elsewhere – a community he had no small part in fostering.
O’Donovan died on Oct. 6 of glioblastoma;... Read more
