For Jenna Moynihan, studying at the Berklee College of Music and exploring Boston’s vibrant folk/traditional environment was a way to find herself. “I had lots of great musicians to listen to and learn from. But eventually you have to get out of mimicking. You’ve got to take off the headphones and listen to yourself.” Sean Smith photoHanging in Jenna Moynihan’s Somerville apartment is a clump of elaborately tangled strands of colored yarn. It’s neither a knitting project gone horribly wrong nor a cat’s over-used plaything; it’s a unique keepsake related to her recently released debut CD, appropriately titled “Woven” – a beguiling mix of Celtic and American fiddle influences.

As Moynihan explains, her photographer friend Lauren Desberg had an idea for the CD cover images to complement the title: that Moynihan wrap yarn around her fiddle, and herself. “My original thought was just to use one thread, but she said, ‘No, let’s go all out.’ It was actually pretty easy to set it all up. But getting out of it – that was harder. So I wound up with this big knot, and now every time I see it I think, ‘There’s my album.’”

Moynihan’s choice for the title wasn’t random. “Woven” happens to be on Moynihan’s list of favorite words, and it’s one of her favorite metaphors, too. For one thing, it evokes her experience in Boston after she arrived in 2009 from her hometown in New York’s Southern Tier to attend Berklee College of Music. Like many a Celtic musician new to the area, she quickly found that Boston’s folk and traditional music scene has many intertwining threads – plentiful sessions, parties or other get-togethers, at which there are numerous creative people to provide inspiration and possibly even collaboration.

SpeakEasy Stage Company presents the New England premiere of the musical “Violet” from Jan. 9 to Feb. 6 at the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts. 

With a powerful score by Jeanine Tesori (“Fun Home” “Caroline, Or Change”) and book and lyrics by Brian Crawley (based on the short story The Ugliest Pilgrim by Doris Betts), “Violet” is set in 1964 during the civil rights movement.  

Seamus Connolly played “one last tune” during his retirement party last month. Sean Smith photoMusician, teacher, organizer, scholar: Fulfilling these roles for the better part of a quarter-century, Seamus Connolly has helped make Boston College a go-to place for traditional music from Ireland, Scotland, Cape Breton, and other Gaelic cultures.
But the final notes of his tenure at BC have sounded.

Connolly, who has been BC’s Sullivan Family Artist-in-Residence since 2004, retired from the University effective at the end of the fall semester. Appropriately enough, a formal public announcement of his plans came at the Dec. 8 Christmas concert in the Cadigan Alumni Center, held as part of the Gaelic Roots Music, Song, Dance, Workshop and Lecture Series – widely acclaimed as one of his signal achievements.

“There comes a moment in everyone’s life when you look back and then say, ‘It’s time,’” said Connolly in an interview. “I felt that over 25 years, with the help of many good people, we were able to accomplish so much in giving the Irish and other Gaelic music traditions a home at BC. So moving on at this point just seems the right thing to do.