Today it is an internationally renowned festival that brings $11.5 million to the island economy each autumn. Twenty odd years ago Celtic Colours International Festival was the magnificently ambitious dream of Cape Breton musicians Joella Foulds and Max MacDonald, a pair of strategic thinkers with deep convictions. The gathering also honours the region’s French and Mi’kmaq roots, with activities scheduled for the villages of Belle Cote, d’Escousse, Eskasoni and Membertou. In keeping with the island’s predominantly Celtic heritage, many concerts and events take place in Gaelic-named communities like Boisdale, Inverness, Iona and Glendale. The Unusual Suspects, the festival’s largest act, is richly international in scope a 28 member Celtic folk orchestra arranged and directed by Scottish musicians David Milligan and Corinna Hewat, with help from Cape Breton’s Allie Bennett.ĬCIF’s marquee attractions may be the 49 concerts staged all across the island, but the festival also includes over 250 cultural events and exhibits, and more than 50 community meals where visitors can sit elbow to elbow with Cape Bretoners, enjoying home cooking and warm hospitality, often forging lasting friendships over seafood chowder, fishcakes or a Thanksgiving turkey dinner.
#Natalie macmaster and friends mac#
Fiddlers Natalie MacMaster and Ashley MacIsaac, Gaelic singer Mary Jane Lamond, and pianists Doug MacPhee and Mac Morin will comprise part of the Cape Breton contingent. Scottish singer, songwriter and composer Dougie MacLean, Irish fiddler Liz Doherty and Galician piper Carlos Nunez are among the international artists appearing at this year’s festival.
Amidst ocean vistas and old-growth forests, by the picture-perfect Bras d’Or Lakes and along the Fleur de Lis Trail, all will be united by the transcending language of music for nine crisp days and starlit nights from October 7 to 15. Visiting artists will perform with the region’s fiddlers, pipers and dancers in communities along the famed Cabot Trail. Gifted musicians from Japan, Russia, Spain, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, the Isle of Man, the United States and seven Canadian provinces will cross the islet’s Canso Causeway to the place so poignantly penned in the lyrics of Kenzie MacNeil’s Cape Breton anthem, “ We are an island, a rock in the stream, we are a people as proud as there’s been.” In small towns, rural harbours and picturesque villages, traditional Cape Breton musicians are getting ready to host their cultural counterparts from around the world for the 2oth edition of Celtic Colours International Festival (CCIF).
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