CELTIC CONNECTIONS
I t’s time to take your ears for a walk this month as the world’s biggest winter music festival erupts again in Glasgow. Sixteen years since Celtic Connections took its first tentative steps at the Royal Concert Hall, it’s become a spectacular Scottish success story. This year’s line- up ushers in 1,500 top-flight musicians from 35 countries, who will play at more than a dozen venues in the city.
W U A S S U O B E V E L :
I
O T O H P
Certainly Jerry Douglas, born in Warren, Ohio, gets a kick from Glasgow in January. ‘It feels like Christmas to me! That whole wonderful setting, and the atmosphere – I just go crazy, I don’t want to go home.’ The fact that Douglas is a 12-time Grammy winner, revered for his guitar work with everyone from Ray Charles to Elvis Costello, should grant him authority. But as musical director (with Aly Bain) of the Transatlantic Sessions, he has a grassroots feel for Celtic Connections’ trick of mixing and matching, especially when it comes
28 THE LIST 7–21 Jan 2010
To get the most from the festival, Douglas is coming over a few days early this year. ‘Because this is one of the few places in the world you can really have the chance to listen to new music. It’s unique.’ Celtic Connections, various venues, Glasgow, Thu 14 – Sun 31 Jan. See folk music listings for details or go to www.celticconnections.com for more info.
ONLY CONNECT
to American folk. ‘Music has been one of Scotland’s major exports for three or four hundred years, and this is the backbone of Celtic Connections, and the reason for it – to share the music and to bring it back home again,’ he says. ‘It comes back in a different shape, but there’s something added to it, too.’
The clue’s in the name – as what has underpinned this achievement has really been ‘connections’ – not just the between connections musicians their mushrooming audience, but the imaginative programming of putting special talents in inspired combinations that, year after year, spur them to new musical heights. With Alasdair Roberts, The Low Anthem and Buffy Sainte-Marie all featuring, the Celtic Connections festival just keeps going from strength to strength, says Ninian Dunnett
and
Douglas is enthusiastic about the ‘ultra-modern’ scope of a festival includes contemporary stars of jazz and world music alongside the latest Scottish innovations. He recalls encountering Jewish- music the Klezmatics at the ABC three years giant cacophonous sound! It blew the whole premise that this is all just Celtic music, or old music, and I thought – “how are we going to follow that?”’ revisionists
ago.
that
‘A