February might seem like the paradigmatic calm before the storm of March and its St. Patrick’s Day-related festivities, but there’s a fair amount of Irish/Celtic music in Boston and vicinity during the shortest month.

 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.”

Boston-area fiddler, banjo player and vocalist Maura Shawn Scanlin says there is a very basic unifying theme to her recently released debut solo album: gratitude.