Centered around the Shalin-Liu Performance Center, one of the more impressive venues in Greater Boston, the fifth Rockport Celtic Festival will take place Sept. 12-15, with an assortment of big-stage and intimate events that spotlight Celtic traditions – Irish, Scottish, Cape Breton – as well as their ties and commonalities with other kinds of music.  

A prominent figure this year will be multi-genre fiddler Jeremy Kittel, who as the festival’s artist-in-residence will perform as a soloist with his trio Kittel & Co., and in collaboration with other artists.

          In addition, Rockport 2024 will see performances of new works by esteemed traditional Irish fiddler Liz Carroll with the Rasa String Quartet, and Scottish-born fiddler-guitarist Hannah Read, who will present her collection of original compositions “The Fungi Sessions.”

Also on the roster: harpist/vocalist Maeve Gilchrist, the festival’s artistic director; Scandinavian duo Väsen; New England music quartet Pine Tree Flyers; Americana/old-timey music stalwarts Darol Anger and Bruce Molsky; uilleann piper Joey Abarta; popular maritime and sea shanty singer David Coffin; Irish singer Madelyn Monaghan; and widely traveled bass player Logan Coale. 

Complete details, including times and event descriptions, are available at rockportmusic.org/rockport-celtic-festival.

It’s a transition year for the festival, whose founder, Brian O’Donovan, died last fall. His loss has been keenly felt throughout and beyond Boston, not least for his role in organizing and masterminding hugely popular events such as the Christmas and St. Patrick’s Day “Celtic Sojourn” productions. 

But the Rockport Celtic Festival has always had a different ethos, says Gilchrist, who worked with O’Donovan from its very beginning.

“Brian’s idea was to create a platform to curate Celtic and Celtic-adjacent music in an adventurous yet informal way, similar to ‘boutique’ festivals such as Celtic Connections in which the music is a starting point to a larger conversation,” she explains. “He wanted Rockport to take on a life of its own, and in the discussions we had after his cancer diagnosis, he gave his blessing to have the festival move forward. So there was never any doubt of it continuing.

“While Rockport may have some different aspects than the ‘Celtic Sojourn’ shows and the many other events Brian created and nurtured, they all reflect his vision: that the best and truest way to bring people together, especially in a polarized world, is through music.”

Fiddler Jeremy Kittel will be the festival's artist-in-residence.

The Grammy-winning Kittel, in his role as artist-in-residence, fits that mindset in many ways, says Gilchrist. “Jeremy is a wonderful example of a 21st-century Celtic-inspired musician. He has such a strong background in Scottish music – he’s a former US Scottish Fiddle Champion – and he does job of taking disparate influences, like jazz, classical, bluegrass, and making it work. He also has a phenomenal grasp of harmony that doesn’t feel like a cut-and-paste job but is organic and authentic. Jeremy’s sound, his whole vibe, is jaw-dropping and also emotionally satisfying.”

Carroll, meanwhile, has been one of America’s most prominent Irish fiddlers for nigh on four decades, not only for the precision and verve of her playing but also for her based-in-tradition compositions. The presentation of her new composition, in partnership with the Rasa String Quartet – a Boston-based ensemble that describes its music as exploring “the space where classical and folk traditions intersect and influence one another” – ushers in a new facet of Rockport, notes Gilchrist: Each year, the festival will feature a commissioned work that evokes the memory and legacy of O’Donovan. 

The opening night concert, “Westbound from Sweden,” also illustrates the idea of music as a meeting place, according to Gilchrist: Väsen, the duo of Mikael Marin and Olov Johansson, will offer their intricate, sublime take on Scandinavian music – played on nyckelharpa, viola and other bowed-string instruments; they’ll be joined at the concert by Anger and Molsky, who in addition to being superb musicians have also been teachers and mentors to younger players discovering the joys of bluegrass and old-time music, and Abarta, – who has honed his skills through continuing relationships with master pipers, and is dedicated to passing along his knowledge to the next generation – as well as Gilchrist.

“It will be a dialogue across three different styles of music that, at first glance, seem to be vastly different from one another – and in some respects, certainly are,” says Gilchrist. “But the focus at this festival is in finding those delightful intersections between Scandinavian nyckelharpas, old-timey fiddles and Irish pipes. I’m as eager as anyone to find out.”

As glorious as the musical instruments are, Rockport is equally attuned to showcasing the human voice, whether the highly ornamented Gaelic sean-nós style of Monaghan or the rollicking sea shanty singing of Coffin. And true to the festival’s desire for audience participation, Coffin will lead a “pub-less pub sing” at the Old Sloop Coffeehouse in Rockport’s First Congregational Church (no admission charge). 

“In putting the festival together, we’ve always been intentional about paying tribute to Rockport for its maritime history and culture,” says Gilchrist. “This also has been an opportunity to think more generally about the sea and its impact on people and places down through the ages, such as whaling and fishing industries, or emigration from one place to another.

“That will be reflected in the ‘Transatlantic’ finale concert, with David and Jeremy as well as the Rasa String Quartet playing a sea-themed repertoire from the Western Classical canon. ‘Transatlantic’ also will be the setting for Liz’s collaboration with Rasa, which will be very exciting.”

  Another Rockport hallmark has been its focus on the written word as a complement and companion to music. That’s the premise of the “Words and Music” segment, in which festival artists share a selection of poetry and prose, accompanied by both curated and improvised soundscapes.

“From the first, Brian and I nerded out on a passion project on words,” says Gilchrist. “There can be such a spiritual dimension to poetry or a piece of prose, distilling something ordinary into something profound. This has always been a very personalized experience for Rockport performers and audiences alike.” 

The festive and social elements of Celtic music and dance also are important to artists and aficionados, and these will be front and center at the “Festival Club Ceilidh” with Pine Tree Flyers members Katie McNally (fiddle), Neil Pearlman (piano), and Emily Troll (fiddle, accordion), where there are likely to be any number of inspired, spur-of-the-moment occurrences.

“It’s going to be an emotional experience, of course, being the first Rockport Celtic Festival without Brian,” sums up Gilchrist. “But we’ve all drawn inspiration from how Brian loved and valued all different kinds of music and saw these as a means to connect people. We’ll keep that in our hearts as we carry on.”