Festival Coverfolk: The Boston Celtic Music Festival
(January 9-10, Cambridge, MA)
January 4th, 2009 — 12:20 am
Throwing a multi-venue music festival in the dead of a finally frigid New England winter may seem a bit anomalous, especially so soon after the streets have been swept clean of the detritus of First Night celebrations. But music has always been a way to drive away the chill. And with the weather slowing touring schedules for many local musicians, winter can also bring a high concentration of well-rested musicians back home to roost, just waiting for a catalyst to celebrate.
At its best, then, heading out to see local live music this time of year becomes a kind of liminal activity, creating community space in opposition to the isolating cold. Instead of just watching, we gather together to radiate and reinforce our own heat, joining our own hometown musicians in their celebration of life and local community.
Such is the premise behind Boston’s Celtic Music Festival, a musician-run event which takes place January 9th and 10th in and around the city. And if this year’s schedule is any indication, BCMFest 2009 is poised to take the Boston winter scene by storm.
Now in its sixth year, BCMFest has grown from a small grassroots collective to a two-day, four stage undertaking, comprising over 30 acts pulled primarily from the thriving local scene, many of whom tour nationally during the warmer months. In addition to traditional reels, jigs, pub music and ceilidh soundtracks from Irish, Scottish, Cape Breton and other Celtic traditions, in an attempt to widen the net beyond the typical sound most of us associate with the term “Celtic”, this year’s festival will also feature several “fringe events“, from celtic cover sets to open-ended music and dance sessions, featuring performers and performances which incorporate a Celtic influence into a larger framework of traditional and fusionfolk.
Several sets are also presented as collaborative sessions, and any festival run by musicians who genuinely love playing with each other is inevitably going to have plenty of crossover. So expect performers to cover a great range themselves, playing true Irish or Scottish tradfolk in one session, and turning to a more modern setting the next.
Overall, the BCMFest promises to be an incredible time, somewhere between a traveling barn dance, an Irish festival, and a big old two-day party. The fun begins Friday night with a choice of a long set of Urban Ceilidh sessions in Medford and a series of more intimate staged performances at longstanding Harvard Square folkstage Club Passim; Saturday, performances will continue at Passim, and three spaces will be set up at the nearby First Parish Church for sessions ranging from small sing-alongs and workshops to dance sessions and performances to something billed as the BCMFest Olympics, hosted by Crooked Still bass player Corey DiMarino and award-winning fiddler and songwriter Hanneke Cassel. If you’ve got any energy left, the event culminates in a huge dance session on Saturday night featuring a huge host of special guests.
I was lucky enough to catch an intimate BCMFest preview session at the ICONS Irish festival this fall, and I was blown away by the sheer diversity and talent of the singer-songwriters and instrumentalists who associate themselves with the community. As evidence, here’s a few of my favorite new voices, just a few among many slated to warm the crowds and hearts at this year’s BCMFest, each fully capable of playing both traditional and more modern tradfolk, and making it their own.
I’m especially loving the rollicking, high-energy alt-tradpunk party that is the loose musical collective Session Americana, who we most recently heard as collaborators on Rose Polenzani’s new album. There’s also some great and surprisingly tender folk covers from Celtic fusion fiddlefolk group Annalivia, who blew the crowd away at ICONS this summer in full-blown Irish dance mode, and the new eclectic stringfolk quartet Blue Moose and the Unbuttoned Zippers, who made a big splash in this year’s Falcon Ridge Folk Festival showcase, and will start BCMFest off on Friday evening at Club Passim.
Want more? I’ve topped today’s set off with a short set of bonus covers by and from from three lovely young Boston-based singer-songwriters who will be showing their Celtic side at the festival: BCMFest co-organizer and folkfiddler Laura Cortese, previously-featured rising star Kristin Andreassen, and fellow folk femme fiddler Lissa Schneckenburger. Enjoy the taste, and I’ll see you in Boston on January 9th and 10th.
- Annalivia: Walking on a Wire (orig. Richard Thompson)
- Annalivia: Lazy John (trad.)
- Blue Moose and the Unbuttoned Zippers: Kisses Sweeter than Wine (orig. The Weavers)
- Blue Moose and the Unbuttoned Zippers: Saucy Sailor (trad./pop. Steeleye Span)
- Laura Cortese: Winter Wonderland (Bernard/Smith)
- Laura Cortese: Just Like Heaven (orig. The Cure)
- Laura Cortese: Even the Lost Creek (orig. Kristin Andreassen)
- Lissa Schneckenburger: Like The Snow (orig. Kristin Andreassen)
Planning on being within range of Boston next weekend? Head over to the BCMFest website to learn more, or to the Club Passim website to reserve your BCMFest 2009 tickets now!
PS: No matter where you live, of course, supporting local music is a worthy pursuit in its own right — it’s good for community, and good for your ears. The links above will send you off to a treasure-trove of heartwarming music and musicians; even if you can’t make it this weekend, I encourage you to pick up the best works of all these artists featured here. If traditional Celtic folk is your thing, you can also pick up a CD of some of the best traditional performances from the very first BCMFest over at CDBaby.