Arts and Entertainment
Sometimes, the craziest-sounding ideas turn out not to be so crazy after all. Case in point: last year's "A Christmas Celtic Sojourn."
Given the dire economic situation last fall, it would hardly have been surprising if the annual holiday offering of... Read more
"Fine Winter's Night," the holiday album and live show by Irish duo Matt & Shannon Heaton, features traditional, updated, and original Irish music to help usher in Christmas. The Heatons will perform throughout the Northeast and Midwest this December... Read more
On January 8 and 9, 2010, the Boston Celtic Music Fest (BCMFest) will mark its seventh year of warming up the chilly Boston winter with a showcase of some of the area's finest performers in the Irish, Scottish, Cape Breton, and other Celtic or Celtic-... Read more
His was a classic rags-to-riches story, almost too good to be true: the 4th of 11 children, raised in a row house in Athlone, Ireland, who by his mid-30s became an international singing star adored by millions.
John McCormack (1884-1945) earned worldwide... Read more
Don't you hate it when you're sitting across the room from someone who refuses to answer their cell phone? Inevitably, you do a slow burn while they nonchalantly let it ring. And ring. And ring.
That's the jumping off point in Sarah Ruhl's comedy, "Dead... Read more
Ah, Columbus Day Weekend in New England. Crisp autumn air, beautiful foliage, football – and some toe-tapping Celtic music, courtesy of BCMFest. This year's Columbus Day Weekend begins and ends with BCMFest, literally: on Friday, Oct. 9, the third BCMFest... Read more
Transcribing an interview with Girsa – the all-female, high school/college-age Irish-American band from Rockland County, NY, that is catching ears and turning heads in ever-increasing numbers – is a prospect only slightly easier than, say, reforming the... Read more
Are you one someone who sings at the drop of a downbeat? Aside from the social aspects of sharing a tune, would you like to explore the skills involved in traditional Irish singing? Then the Irish Song Circle Workshop at Springstep in Medford may be for... Read more
Bonny "Babes" - There'll be a distinctive Caledonian feel to this month's BCMFest Celtic Music Monday concert, which features some of Greater Boston's most outstanding female musicians in the Scottish tradition. "Babes in Scotland," which takes place Sept... Read more
One of these mornings
You're gonna rise up singin'
You're gonna spread your wings
And fly to the sky...
-- From "Summertime," composed by George Gershwin for Porgy and Bess (1935).
Jerry Holland did just that last month: rose up singing, flew to the sky... Read more
Local friends and fans of Jerry Holland are mourning the death last month of the Cape Breton fiddling legend, who maintained close ties to both the Greater Boston and Irish music communities.
Mr. Holland, who had been battling cancer the past two years,... Read more
Eileen Ivers ranks as one of the world's premier Irish fiddlers. Although born in the Bronx (her parents are from County Mayo), she spent her childhood summers in Ireland, winning nine All-Ireland Fiddle Championships.
The three-year-old girl who once... Read more
For more than 30 years, Seamus Kennedy has presented his distinctive blend of Irish folk songs and ballads, contemporary and popular songs, and stage patter that invariably elicits belly laughs, chuckles, groans, and the occasional "did-he-really-say-that... Read more
A column of news and updates of the Boston Celtic Music Fest (BCMFest), which celebrates the Boston area's rich heritage of Irish, Scottish, Cape Breton music and dance with a grassroots, musician-run winter music festival and other events during the year... Read more
Every year for the past two decades and more, Cambridge resident and violin maker Bob Childs has organized a family reunion that is unique in a few ways - including the fact that none of the participants are technically related to him.
Childs is the... Read more
A column of news and updates of the Boston Celtic Music Fest (BCMFest), which celebrates the Boston area's rich heritage of Irish, Scottish, Cape Breton music and dance with a grassroots, musician-run winter music festival and other events during the year... Read more
Founded in 1945, Berklee College of Music was the first school in the United States to offer formal training in jazz. Today its reputation spans all musical genres and its student body is an international melting pot of individuals from more than 70... Read more
On Old Cape Cod, the nine-mile stretch along Route 28 from Hyannis to Harwich is fast becoming more like Galway or Kerry than the Cape of legend from years ago. This high-traffic run of roadway is dominated by Irish flags, Irish pubs, Irish restaurants,... Read more
The so-called Celtic Tiger, a period of unprecedented economic prosperity in Ireland, seems now to have lost much of its bite. But its teeth marks - at least in the form of unprecedented social changes underwritten in large part by that prosperity -... Read more
Celtic music is played all over the world, on stages before capacity crowds in venues of all sizes and settings. But however you dress it up, and wherever you take it out, the music sounds most at home in an honest-to-goodness session, whether in a pub... Read more
