Troy MacGillivray

Our first visitors "from away"! Nova Scotia is one of Canada's Celtic treasure chests, and Troy MacGillivray is one of the finest young musicians in this living tradition.

CelticFest is thrilled that Troy and Kimberley Fraser will be with us, bringing the brilliant one-two punch of the Maritime fiddle and piano to our stages this weekend. It's a rare chance to catch the real deal, straight from the source of a tradition that's been rockin' the house out east for centuries.

www.troymacgillivray.com

CelticFest Performances

Saturday 18

1 - 2pm Tom Lee Music, City Stage

2:30 - 3:30pm Celtic Village Market Stage

8pm - 12am Atlantic Trap & Gill

Sunday 19

1:15 - 3pm TD Plaza Stage

3:30 - 5:30pm The Irish Cellar

5:30 – 11pm The Plaza Club

The McShane Family

The McShane Family hail from the quaint town of Qualicum Beach.

Singing is the family's passion. The children also play a wide variety of musical instruments. These include the violin, piano, flute, piccolo, recorder, Irish tin whistle, Celtic bodhran, guitar and alto and baritone saxophone.

The family has grown up in a home filled with music where singing came as naturally as talking. This has resulted in the development of their beautiful melodious voices.

Over the years, the family has acquired a vast and diverse musical repertoire appealing to a wide variety of musical tastes and styles. From classical and sacred pieces to contemporary, musical theatre and traditional music, with a special fondness for the beautiful Celtic music of their Irish and Scottish heritage.

With a strong sense of musicianship, they deliver their songs in a touching emotive manner and are a pleasure to watch on stage. Put it all together and it creates a performance well worth remembering.

www.themcshanefamily.ca

CelticFest Performances

North Shore Celtic Ensemble

The North Shore Celtic Ensemble (NSCE) is a group of 20+ young gifted musicians from North and West Vancouver (BC, Canada), who perform Celtic-based orchestral and folk music using string instruments, precussions and a selection of wind instruments. The students work and perform directly with professional musicians and musically minded peers, providing them with a rich musical environment that is not available through the public school systems. NSCE is a Non-Profit Society and a Registered Charity.

The ensemble's Artistic Director: Claude Giguère has 20 years' experience as a professional violinist and teacher. Jay Knutson, Artistic Director, has over 20 years of experience in performance and musical workshops. A founding member of Spirit of the West, he recorded several CD's with this group.

www.nscelticensemble.com

CelticFest Performances

The Paperboys

Rare is the band that keeps going for more than a decade and just keep getting better. The Paperboys were one of the first Vancouver Celtic bands to take on the world, and over the years their music has woven Latin, funk, bluegrass and more into a totally original sound that's never forgotten it's roots. One thing that's never changed is their ability to connect with an audience and take everybody higher and higher.

This is their first St. Paddy's show in Vancouver for a long, long time. Combining these hometown heroes and all those special guests, it's going to be a night to remember!

www.paperboys.com

CelticFest Performances

Friday 17

8pm Commodore Ballroom

Tim Readman

British-Canadian songsmith Tim Readman has developed his own definitive style and sensibility that incorporates a genuine feel for traditional music with a rare ability to play in many contemporary styles. He has an infectious sense of humour and a real ability to engage an audience. His energetic and personable style makes him a superb MC and front man. As a band leader he can transform his solo repertoire into a driving danceable concoction. He also has an extensive repertoire covering everything from original and traditional folk songs to The Beatles and Chuck Berry to Steely Dan and Madonna. He can entertain in any setting, from concert hall to campfire.

Emerging from the same North-Eastern English folk scene as Jez Lowe, Vin Garbutt, and Bob Fox he earned a reputation as an outstanding songwriter, guitarist, singer and interpreter of traditional and contemporary folk songs. Since moving to Canada he has emerged from a varied musical background as a folk singer with strong and binding cultural roots. With his first solo CD Into the Red, he became recognized as an original songwriter.

Readman has shared the stage with an impressive list of artists and tours the UK annually. He can be seen regularly in Vancouver hosting the successful 'Tim Readman and Musical Friends' series at Montmartre Cafe which won the Georgia Straight songwriter venue of the year for 2003.

www.timreadman.com

CelticFest Performances

Oliver Schroer
& Twisted String

Oliver Schroer is a unique fiddler composer who lives at the cutting edge.

If it was possible to hear DNA, it might sound like the violin-fiddling of Oliver Schroer. Spare, complex, naïve, intense, his music is a beauty both strange and vast - a headlong romp through a world rich in humour, heart, and unexpected resonance. His fiddle sings to us about everywhere fiddles have ever been - from concert halls to campfires, festivals to Finland, Constantinople to kitchen parties. Once his music has been heard, it's impossible to mistake it for anyone else's. His musical explorations have taken him far beyond his traditional Canadian roots into the realms of jazz, Scandinavian, Balkan, and Asian music. But he has gone much farther. He has melded those elements into a unique and recognizable style of his own: lyrical, fractal, a continuously twisting thread. Schroer has composed over 1,000 pieces and has recorded seven CDs of his own compositions and produced eleven albums, two of which have gone Gold. Of the roughly thirty albums Oliver has produced, eight have been nominated for a Juno Award.

TWISTED STRING

The Twisted String is a unique teaching and performance concept developed for young musicians by fiddler composer Oliver Schroer. It is a series of fiddle squads, each consisting of 8-12 hot young players; the instrumentation is mostly fiddle but includes guitar and cello as well.

It is called The Twisted String because it is string music and it is slightly twisted. There is also the sense of twisting a bunch of threads together to make a stronger chord. The repertoire is composed by Oliver Schroer for the groups. It is rooted in Celtic music, but stretches way out from there. There are shades of Bulgarian dances, Norwegian polskas, interlocking pattern music, and low down funk. Sleazy disco grooves support soaring melodies. African and Mongolian sonic forays - why not! And throughout it all, a sense of fun pervades.

www.oliverschroer.com

CelticFest Performances

Sionnaine Irish Dance Academy

Sionnaine Irish dancers have been a part of the proud tradition of Irish dance for the past 7 years. They range from ages 3 to adult, male and female, beginner to advanced, and recreational to competitive. They train weekly in both traditional and modern Irish step dancing including hardshoe and softshoe, as well as ceili (group) dancing and choreographies.

The majority of SIDA dancers attend 5 to 10 competitions and/or championships per year. Their top dancers travel to compete in the Western Canadian Oireachtas (World Qualifying Rounds) every year. Some of these dancers qualified to compete in the North American Irish Dance Championships in Toronto 2001, Boston 2002, Nashville 2003, and Philadelphia 2004.

Dance Instructor, Michelle Kilby began Irish dancing at the age of four with the Violet Moore School of Irish Dance. She has been competing at the highest level of dance since the age of eleven and qualified for the World Irish Dancing Championships every year since then placing between 1st and 4th.

www.sionnaine-academy.com

CelticFest Performances

T.Paul Ste Marie

Combine the bloodline of a Scottish birth mom & a Cornish birth dad, mix it with the upbringing of a French dad and a Scottish mom, and you have at least 3 of the 7 Celtic nations covered in T.Paul in one strange way or another!

Host, emcee, artist, poet, producer of live events, he lives by the credo “Jack of all, master of none”… well, maybe one or two! He has hosted shows of all kinds, from the THUNDERING WORD HEARD stages at the Vancouver Folk Fest, Vancouver International Storytelling Fest, New Music West, to kooky corporate Mardi Gras events, a CBC TV pilot on spoken word, he’s been BOOK TV’s B.C. correspondent, hosted casino openings, a bevy of burlesque shows and umpteen-thousand cabarets!

This year’s CelticFest has T.Paul splitting the bill on a few events. He will be emceeing the "Celtic Cool 1" official opening event of the fest, and will appear at various venues throughout the festival with a gaggle of performers ready to entertain anywhere, anyhow, and at the drop of a hat. Who knows when or where he’ll show up, so keep those eyes peeled for the pompadoured hair do, the green suit or the red tartan jacket and kilt, and your ears open for his modern-day limericks and slick intros for the fest’s incredible talents!

www.t-paul.com

CelticFest Performances

Frank Talbot & Anne Cowman
Co-Producers of Gortnamona: The Life & Times of Percy French

Frank Talbot

Frank was born in Co. Dublin in the days of wooden ships and iron men. His theatre career as an actor/director spans over 50 years. It began in Ireland, then Scotland and continues here in Canada.

In the early 1980's, he founded a theatre group called "The Wilde Rose Players" which became well known as the forerunner of community theatre in Calgary. Over the years he has directed and performed in countless successful productions, mostly well known Irish plays.

In the late 1990's Frank began his present career as a solo actor in the one-man hit play "A Night in November" by the Belfast playwright, Marie Jones. He has performed this play over the past four years to rave reviews in Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon and more recently in Vancouver, and plans to keep on doing so in the years to come. The other one-man show is a condensed version of the hit play by Keith Waterhouse called "Jeffrey Barnard Is Unwell".

His most recent accomplishment is a "Review of the Life & Times of Percy French", Ireland's beloved poet, songwriter and raconteur.

Anne Cowman

Born in Co. Meath, Anne was educated in Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin studying music at the Royal Irish Academy of Music.

Musical Reviews like "Gortnamona" are second nature to Anne having performed in a similar type of production called "Country Capers" back home in Ireland. This production was taken on the road around the country and was very popular back in the late 1960's.

Admitting to having been "tipsy on Irish music all her life", Anne plays traditional Irish music on the button accordion with various groups in Calgary. She has also been involved with the Wilde Rose Players, Liffey Players, Finnegan's Wake, Calgary Irish Cultural Society and its Choir since inception.

As co-producers of Gortnamona, Anne and Frank are enjoying this collaboration immensely. Frank crafted the magical script for the Show and the music element was handled by Anne.

About Gortnamona

"Gortnamona" is as authentic a theatre presentation as you will see on this side of the globe, of Irish culture, music, song, poetry and character. As they look to the stage setting and watch it come alive, the audience feels included and almost part of events as they unfold on stage. Irish people themselves have been intrigued to discover via carefully crafted sketch, how and why Percy French was inspired to write the poems and songs which he wrote.

For those of you who may not know of Percy, by the end of this heart warming ever-so-Irish production, not only will you know Percy French, you will love him for the man that he was and for the rich, illustrious legacy which he left following his demise.

Each member of the primarily amateur cast of nine (six Irish, two Scottish and one Canadian, all currently living in Calgary ) are passionate about promoting Irish culture in Canada and around the world.

CelticFest Performances

Three Row Barley

Three Row Barley's good-time East Coast and auld-country music has been described as "Maximum Celtic" for its energy and joyfulness. Thundering vocals and harmonies, sizzling fiddle and an insistent beat make for a great all-ages appeal.

Fronted by veteran West Coast celt Roger Buston, with vocals by Brian Taylor (bodhran) and Christian Bellsmith (guitar), the beat is pushed along by bassist Chris williscroft. Great fiddle music is provided by White Rock's Avery Yackel, a Ukranian specialist in Asian traditional medicine and the healing properties of Guinness.

www.threerowbarley.com

CelticFest Performances

Wheat In The Barley

How to describe this colorful band of multi-instrumentalists? After hearing a few blazing Celtic and Slavic numbers, you might be tempted to peg The Wheat in the Barley as a fiddletune band. But listen again, as an achingly beautiful version of an ancient harp tune or an air on the flute floats you along in a reverie of chamber music stylings. Along the way, a few pit-stops in Spain, North Africa, the Middle East and South America will round out The Wheat in the Barley's world music tour. As a listening experience, their sound is detailed, sumptuous and more than a bit cheeky - a flying fiddle tune can easily take a detour into the land of the Beatles or an African percussion jam. Their creative arrangements are full of surprises, featuring trilling pennywhistles, rhythmic accordion, bluesy mouth-harp, passionate violin, searing saxophone and more, all against a backdrop of one of the finest rhythm sections in Southwestern B.C. Their storied songs feature up to 5-part vocal harmonies.

The group's name evokes images of Irish and Ukrainian agriculture, which sums up the heritage of its founder, Steve Gidora.

www.wheatinthebarley.com

CelticFest Performances

The WhiskeyDicks

The WhiskeyDicks is a band comprised of music students aged 20-26 from the Yukon and British Columbia. Collectively, they are possibly the most stylistically diverse group of performers ever put on a stage. Their heavy-metal drummer is also a classical pianist, the cellist is a punk rocker, the first fiddle is a Yukon gypsy turned Jazz student, the second fiddle is a child prodigy turned virtuoso one of the guitarists is a blues man gone classical and the second is a hardcore punk rocker. All of their individual influences end up in the mix and somehow work incredibly well together.

Offshoots of the WhiskeyDicks include Rye'n Hootch, - with Ryan Enns on guitar & Patrick Ernst on fiddle - as well as foursome group known as Paddywack.

The WhiskeyDicks impressed us so much at our 2005 Festival, that we had to have them back again this year!

Band Members: Ryan Enns (Guitar and Vox), Patrick Ernst (Fiddle), Zoe Robertson (Fiddle), Curtis Ernst (Cello), Mike Bell (Drums and vox), Dave Kornas (Guitar and Vox)

www.thewhiskeydicks.ca

CelticFest Performances