The third in a series of Celtic Colours International Festival podcasts was released this week. The series, called Suas E!, will run until November 27, with a new episode released every other week. Each approximately half-hour video features an interview with a local artist or friend of the festival, a short performance, and a short clip from Celtic Colours’ Culture Bearers series or a live performance from a past Festival.
The series debuted in March with special guest Chrissy Crowley performing and being interviewed by Celtic Colours Artistic Director Dawn Beaton. The episode ends with a great story from Winnie Chafe about how she got her fiddle. Episode 2 of Suas E! features Cape Breton fiddler, piano player and funny man Howie MacDonald and a performance of “Strange Lover is a Coal Mine” by the Barra MacNeils from the Celtic Colours Live! 2013 CD released late last year.
The latest episode features busy musician and composer Colin Grant. Grant is a driving force behind Sprag Session and Còig, and is also an in-demand solo player. He chats with Beaton about his busy 2014, and shares how a big city boy became one of the most promising young players in the Cape Breton traditional music scene. The episode concludes with a beautiful vignette of Gaelic culture bearer Rod C. MacNeil.
Supported by Nova Scotia Department of Communities Culture and Heritage, with audio production provided by the Digitization Lab at Cape Breton University’s Centre for Cape Breton Studies, Suas E! is hosted by Dawn Beaton, with video production by Jenni Walsh and audio by Christopher Jones of CBU. Being a seasoned traditional musician with Gaelic roots herself, Beaton and her interview subjects are very much at ease—Celtic Colours does come up in the interviews from time to time, but the majority of the discussions revolve around the artists’ current activities, artistic efforts and other Celtic topics beyond Celtic Colours and often even Cape Breton. It all makes up for a very informative and entertaining package.
“We want to shine a bright, high definition light on the artists who make up our festival and our culture,” explains Celtic Colours Marketing Director Devon Strang. “We feel we have a treasure trove of great musicians here on Cape Breton who create as much incredible, world class artwork as the Blues musicians of Chicago or the Jazz musicians of New Orleans.”
The 2014 Celtic Colours International Festival takes place October 10-18 in communities all over Cape Breton Island. This year’s lineup will be announced in late June with tickets going on sales in early July.
Check out Celtic Colours’ new bi-weekly podcast Suas E! here.
