Arts and Entertainment
Jarlath Henderson, “Raw” • Glasgow-based Henderson – Armagh-born and raised in Tyrone – is one of those rare performers who seems able to do it all: a gifted singer who’s a superb instrumentalist in both the melody and rhythm domains. You don’t have to... Read more
Summer BCMFest – the warm-weather counterpart to the annual winter BCMFest (Boston Celtic Music Fest) – will take place in a virtual format on July 5, featuring performances by fiddler Katie McNally; fiddle-harp duo Jenna Moynihan and Màiri Chaimbeul; and... Read more
John Doyle, “The Path of Stones” • The burden of being so good at your craft is that you’re in such demand, you don’t always have time to do something just for you. Which may help explain why John Doyle, a consummate talent in Irish/Celtic music for the... Read more
There’s definitely a kind of hush all over the world lately – certainly in the Boston area, as far as local Irish musicians are concerned. The coronavirus crisis has shuttered pubs, restaurants, and other public venues, depriving musicians of places to... Read more
They are easily among the most accomplished Irish/Celtic guitarists in Greater Boston, New England, and beyond – and also have been among the busiest. Flynn Cohen, a one-time Boston-area resident now living in Brattleboro, co-founded the band Low Lily (... Read more
Kevin Burke, “Sligo Made” • The title is a pun – a riff on the reel “Sligo Maid” – but you don’t have to get the joke to appreciate this latest release from Burke, a master of the Sligo fiddle style and, lest we forget, a seminal figure in the Irish folk/... Read more
Not surprisingly, what would normally have been a robust calendar of Irish/Celtic/traditional music-related events in Greater Boston last month was decimated by the coronavirus crisis. Here’s what is scheduled for April, with the obligatory “check the... Read more
And you thought an Irish music session was a bunch of people playing tunes in a pub.
Well, it is, of course.
But a session also is a veritable wellspring of social mores and interpersonal dynamics that offers insights into how a given community defines,... Read more
March was shaping up as a typically busy month for area musicians like Declan Houton, Kate McDermott, Stuart Peak, and Colm O’Brien, denizens of the Greater Boston Irish/Celtic scene – which, as everyone knows, is at high operating capacity during what is... Read more
Moving as easily between color and black and white as he moved from analog to digital when that technology shift came, Dublin photographer Fionán O’Connell has snapped literally tens of thousands of photos over a career, amateur and professional, now... Read more
The organizers reached out in an email on Sunday, March 22:
On what would have been the closing day of this year's festival, we wanted to take the opportunity to thank you for all of the kind messages we have received since we announced the postponement... Read more
For 15 years Celtic Woman has been celebrating Ireland's rich musical and cultural heritage while continuing its remarkable legacy of introducing some of Ireland's most talented singers and musicians onto the world stage. To commemorate this... Read more
Yesterday, I broadcast A Celtic Sojourn Live from our studios in Brighton as I intend to continue doing every Saturday. Under normal circumstances, we would have been performing at Sanders Theatre in Cambridge at the same time, but alas, that was not to... Read more
The Irish Film Festival Boston will make its return to the Somerville Theatre for its 20th annual celebration of Irish film in Massachusetts. This year’s festival, which runs over four days from March 19-22, will showcase a selection of the new talents,... Read more
Gatehouse, “Heather Down the Moor” • This quartet’s second album carries the same appeal as its first: masterful technical proficiency among the musicians, but also those indefinable yet invaluable qualities – spirit and temperament – with which they... Read more
A welcome fixture in the annual March festivities, “A St. Patrick’s Day Celtic Sojourn” returns this month for its 13th year of featuring performers with ties to Boston and New England as well as others from further afield. The show will stop at Rockport’... Read more
Last year at this time, the award-winning Irish folk quartet Lankum had recently finished its first-ever tour of the US, which included a stop in Cambridge where the band played to a full house in Harvard Square’s Club Passim.
The tour was a foundational... Read more
Seamus Egan, who has lived in Mayo as well as metropolitan Philadelphia and its suburbs – is in the midst of his third winter as a resident of Vermont, at the western edge of the Green Mountains, and all things considered, it has been going pretty well. “... Read more
Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Sweat” is currently stirring the emotional pot at the Huntington Theatre. Set in Reading, PA, and based on interviews Nottage conducted with residents there, the play chronicles what happens in the working-class... Read more
Two of the most accomplished and revered Irish singers of the past half-century (give or take a few years have added to their discographies in recent months:
Andy Irvine, “Old Dog, Long Road Vol. 1” • If you haven’t already been thoroughly impressed,... Read more
