We are getting more and more energized about our 2008 festival line-up. We already gave you all a sneak preview in our last blog and we are sure your appetite is whetted. This time we wanted to focus on some of the events and people that are unusual or new to CelticFest Vancouver.

First, he is not new, but he IS unusual. Shameless the leprechaun will be back throwing gold chocolate coins and spreading good cheer. It is a source of some embarrassment that he’s a good 6 inches taller than I am! But seriously though folks…. In addition to our usual 1 pm free open air shows on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (March 12th-14th) at Granville Square (200 Granville Street) we will also be presenting free shows at noon on the same days at the scenic and wonderful Canada Place (North End Pointe) with its stunning panoramic cityscape, ocean and mountain views.

Tony McManus

Friday evening (March 14th) at the Yale Hotel we will feature the world’s greatest Celtic guitarist, Scotland’s Tony McManus. Now I know the Yale has featured some of the finest guitarists ever on its hallowed stage over the years, but I promise you, you have NEVER seen anything quite like Tony. This is a must for ALL lovers of the guitar. His guitar playing will take your breath away.

Another first for the festival is the inclusion of Ottawa Valley style stepdancing, courtesy of the wonderfully talented Stephanie Cadman. She’ll be strutting her stuff at Canada Place on Wednesday March 12th, at the Commodore Ballroom that same night and will be teaching a workshop (the first EVER in Vancouver) at Tom Lee Music Hall on Saturday March 15th.

Making its debut on Thursday (March 13th) this year is an exciting event we call ‘The Battle of The Bards’. It is a fast-paced tour at some of downtown Vancouver’s finest Celtic Pubs for a head-to-head poetry face-off featuring the most famous Celtic writers! Inspired, in part, by the famous Dublin Literary Pub Crawl, three actors dressed in costume, take on the roles of Dylan Thomas (actor Damon Calderwood), Robbie Burns (actor “Toddish McWong“) and William Butler Yeats (actor Mark Downey) to share some of the great works which firmly placed them in the Celtic cannon. Not content to just have these legendary figures in one room, we put them to the real test in a competition fashioned after the hugely popular spoken word poetry slams.

The late night Festival Artists’ Lounge, on Friday (March 14th), made its debut last year and was a great success. This year we plan to make it bigger and better. We’ve invited all the festival artists to come out to play – and that’s exactly what they will do. It is a musical free for all in which anything can happen – spontaneous jam sessions, collaborations between Celtic artists from different bands, inspired musical virtuosity and lots of laughs. The best thing about it is that you are invited to come along. You’ll hear great players like host Tony McManus, Steafan Hannigan and Wendy MacIsaac & Patrick Gillis, and get a rare chance to witness

Wendy MacIsaac

what happens when musicians get together after-hours to have some musical fun.

The Music Workshops at Tom Lee Music City Stage on Saturday and Sunday (March 15th and 16th) are once again free and open to the public. This year for the first time we are featuring some astonishing international talent, including the guitar wizardry of the world’s greatest Celtic guitarist, Tony McManus, and the renowned multi instrumentalist Steafan Hannigan who’ll be demonstrating how to play both bodhran (Irish drum) and Irish pipes. Steafan has played with everyone from Bjork and Depeche Mode to Michael Flatley. If you come along, you’ll see why! The Cape Breton fiddle and guitar duo of Wendy MacIsaac and Pat Gillis will also be part of this year’s workshops, and they are guaranteed to make your jaw drop in amazement.

We have been amazed in the past by how much interest there is in bagpipes and bagpiping so this year we’ve added two new piping events. A Swarm of Drones, Vancouver’s bagpiping collective, will host a session tent in the festival’s Celtic Village KidsZone, where you can pop in and hear them play and ask questions about anything related to the pipes – including how they are made. The second event new event is the Lowland/Border Bagpipe Pipe Workshop. Join Robert MacDonald, of as he relates the story of the Border Bagpipe and its music. He will be accompanied by Irish, Northumbrian and Scottish small-pipers as he follows the pipes from Neolithic times to today via the Picts, the Emperor Nero, the Court of the Sun King and even the DaVinci Code!

And speaking of the pipes, once again we will feature the B C Regiment Irish Pipes and Drums at our opening ceremony and at our BIG St. Pat’s Night Out party at Richard’s on Richards on Saturday (March 15th). This year they have two great pipers from Belfast in Northern Ireland - Andrew Carlisle, who is winning championships and competitions on a continuing basis and Jimmy Knox, a Pipe Major with some 17 years Service with the Royal Irish Regiment.

Our BIG St. Pat’s Night Out party at Richard’s on Richards features Celtic Fiddle Festival -  an unbelievable line up of talent with the likes of Kevin Burke (Patrick Street - Ireland), Christian Lemaître (Brittany), André Brunet (La Bottine Souriante - Quebec) Joining them, will be guest artists Wendy MacIsaac (Cape Breton) and Chrissy Crowley (Cape Breton). As well, our friends with the BC Regiment Pipes & Drums will open the evening and the Penk O’Donnell Dancers will show you what stepdancing is all about.

Tim Readman, Artistic Director,

Edgewater Casino CelticFest Vancouver

As the new Artistic Director for Edgewater Casino CelticFest Vancouver I am excited to tell you that our programming for the 2008 festival is now complete. We have a great line up of more than 50 events in store from March 12 to 16, including indoor and outdoor Celtic concerts, music and step dancing workshops, family entertainment, spoken word, music at our official participating pubs/clubs and, of course, all of the fun of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade…and much, much more. In fact, there’s so much going on, it is hard to know where to start, so I have decided that the best thing to do is to give you an exclusive sneak preview of the highlights of our 2008 festival program. This is still a secret to the rest of the world, but since you have taken the trouble to visit our site, we know you must be a real fan of all things Celtic, and we figure you deserve to share our good news.

For the first time in the festival’s history, we are bringing in some great acts from Scotland and Ireland.

In fact, the headliner for our opening night World’s Greatest Ceilidh at the Commodore Ballroom on Wednesday March 12th is the legendary Battlefield Band from Scotland. Under their banner “Forward with Scotland’s Past”, Battlefield Band have been performing on the international scene for more than three decades, inspired by their rich heritage of Celtic music and fired by the strength of the modern Scottish cultural scene. The band mix the old songs and tunes with new self-penned material, playing them on a unique fusion of ancient and modern instruments: bagpipes, synthesizers, fiddles, guitars and lots more. I saw them at Mission Folk Festival and they really got the crowd going. They are the only band in the universe that can go all the way from Bonnie Prince Charlie to Prince (their version of ‘Kiss’ has to be heard to be believed).

Battlefield Band 

On Friday March 14th there’ll be an early evening concert at The Yale Hotel featuring the world’s greatest Celtic guitarist, Tony McManus. Born and raised in Scotland, and now residing in Toronto with his Canadian family, Tony’s music has come to define a new role for the guitar in Celtic music. He has come to represent Celtic music in the guitar world, making regular appearances at guitar festivals and workshops all over the planet. He is also in great demand as a studio musician having contributed to over 60 albums. In addition to his solo output Tony has worked with both singers and instrumentalists providing his distinctive sound on many successful projects. Don’t miss this performance – it will blow your mind. Later that same night at Tom Lee Music Hall, for the second year running, we will present The Artists’ Lounge. The idea was inspired by our former Artistic Director, Henry Kolenko’s 2006 visit to the wonderful Celtic Colours Festival in Cape Breton, where they hold a fantastic nightly after-hours event called the Festival Club. After their regular gigs the festival’s musicians come together to play music in a sultry, intimate setting - in front of a live audience. I witnessed it this year and it was brilliant! You never know who’s going to drop in. At our 2007 Artist’s Lounge we featured players of the calibre of Daniel Lapp, Shona Le Mottée, Stuart Cameron, The Sabir Sisters and many, many more. It was a resounding success. So we are going to do it all over again in 2008 - only better! It will be hosted by Tony McManus and will feature world renowned multi-instrumentalist Steafan Hannigan, and Ottawa Valley fiddling and step dancing sensation Stephanie Cadman, plus a whole host of festival musicians and some of Vancouver’s best Celtic performers. Exciting, unpredictable and explosive music will be heard into the wee hours and you are all invited! On Saturday March 15th the BIG (and we mean BIG!) St. Pat’s Night Out at Richard’s on Richards features Celtic Fiddle Festival – an unbelievable trio of Master Fiddlers – with Kevin Burke (Ireland), Christian Lemaître (Brittany, France) and André Brunet (Quebec). After three brilliant albums and numerous international tours later, these guys are now one of the most popular acts on the Celtic circuit. Also on the bill are two fantastic Cape Breton acts, the fiddle guitar duo of Wendy MacIsaac (Beolach) and Pat Gillis; and a band led by one of the island’s best young fiddlers Chrissy Crowley (Cape Breton). I saw them all at Celtic Colours in October 2007 and I can promise you, these guys rock! Throughout the festival we will feature the cream of BC’s Celtic talent, including The Sabir Sisters, Tiller’s Folly, Jay Knutson and the Celtic Swamp Devils, Kinship and Roof Rabbit. Our MC and musical host this year is bagpiper Jordan Seguin, Pipe Major with the B.C. Regiment - Irish Pipes & Drums. He is the youngest Pipe Major of an army-attached band in Canada or the UK at the present time. Jordan is also a trained actor and plays pipes in a Celtic heavy metal band and has a burgeoning acting career. Keeping with the theme of youth we will also be presenting 15 year old brother and sister guitar/fiddle sensations Qristina and Quinn Bachand from Victoria, BC. They are stars of YouTube and earlier this year they were invited to play at the YouTube Canada launch party in Toronto. Also there’s White Rock BC’s 12 year old wunderkind fiddler Kierah, Coquitlam BC’s 15 year old Celtic fiddle dynamo, Caitlan Read and the aforementioned darling of Cape Breton fiddlers, 17 year old Chrissy Crowell. Yes my friends, these are the fiddlers of the future, and they will convince you that the Celtic music of tomorrow is in very good hands indeed. I could go on, but I’m sure by now you get the picture. There will be more to announce soon. The 2008 Edgewater Casino CelticFest Vancouver is not to be missed.