Hebridean Celtic Festival - July 15-18, 2009

“We are in a pretty unique location, and you have to have a pioneering spirit to make it all the way up to the festival if you don't have ties here,” says Caroline MacLennan, festival director of the Hebridean Celtic Festival -- Fèis Cheilteach Innse Gall in Scots Gaelic -- and the place she’s speaking of is the Isle of Lewis, the northernmost island of the Western Isles, some forty miles off the north coast of Scotland.  The festival will celebrate its fourteenth year this summer from 15 to 18 July, drawing musicians and fans from Scotland, Ireland, North America, Europe, and Australia. Throughout Scotland, 2009 is being celebrated as the year of homecoming.  “We're lucky in a
way that the Hebrides have such a huge diaspora, people are our biggest exports, always have been. Because of that we have now become a focal point for friends and family who now time their homecoming trip around the festival.  That’s why we consider ourselves to be the original homecoming event!” MacLennan says.

John Sommerville, Box Club

This year the expected five thousand or so festival goers who pour into events at the festival grounds in Stornoway will hear music from two high energy Quebecois bands, the big band with horns La Bottine Souriante, who are making a return appearance at the festival after a ten year break, and the smaller but still knock you off your feet with their power group Le Vent du Nord, who will be making their festival debut. Lewis native and rising Gaelic singing star Calum Alex MacMillan will be there, as will Facing the West, a band which got its start when the members played together in music classes in schools on the island. Karen Matheson, much awarded and well loved lead singer of the band Capercaillie fronts her own acoustic group at this year’s festival, and there’s also The Box Club, a hit at January’s Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow with their four accordion front line. Sharon Shannon from Ireland will also be playing her squeezebox, and The Wilders from the USA will be there, along with The Ploughboys from Australia, The Chair, piper Fred Morrison, the Michael McGoldrick Band, and Calum Martin’s Megantic Outlaw, a song cycle that links the history of Hebrides and Quebec, and others. 

“Our festival promotes Celtic music in its widest sense and we have always drawn on world music influences because of the global links through our disapora,” MacLennan explains.  “The programming is a healthy mix of popular Celtic music and those perhaps less well known on our shores, along with a sprinkling of the unusual. The festival is proud to support local musicians and we try as much as possible to provide opportunities for them on many levels from those learning their craft to the likes of Julie Fowlis, Mary Smith, Alyth McCormack and the many other fine home bred Gaelic singers and musicians.”  Scots Gaelic is widely spoken in daily life in the Outer Hebrides, one of the few places in Scotland where this is still true.

The festival is more than just a casual event for the people of Lewis. In addition to the main events in Stornoway, there are concerts and workshops in other areas of the island,  and many festival goers explore beyond the festival time, as well. “The festival is a local charity, run by the local community for the community.  It’s the biggest tourist attraction in the area and because it is a multi site festival and not a self contained unit the local community benefits in many different ways,” MacLennan points out. Those who come to HebCeltFest, as it’s known for short, are contributing to the life of the island community in many ways. “The festival itself promotes local produce, crafts, and innovation and many providers for the festival are themselves charities,” MacLennan says.  “For example, last year the local hospice were raising funds to build an extension and ran bus tours during the festival to help with their efforts.  By coming to the event and the islands festival goers are contributing hugely to the ongoing viability of many local businesses and not just those who are tourism related.”  To put that in a bit of context, the festival grounds handle about five thousand visitors; Stornoway, the largest town in the Western Isles, has a population of less than ten thousand. So it is a big impact.

Michael McGoldrick

Mairearad Green of Box Club

Volunteers are a major part of making the festival work, from setting up the stages to helping artists find their way ar ound to tearing things down when it’s all done. “The volunteers are kind of like our audience in that they have grown with us and it’s now like a big family.  They don't all live in the islands, some are from outwith the UK even, but they all make an effort to come home and help out and the festival is the richer for that,”  MacLennan says. “Our core team who are all volunteers themselves has more or less remained the same for some years now which is hugely helpful in working with the wider volunteer force.  Of course there is always a turnover and we welcome new volunteers each year but I personally keep in touch with ex volunteers all over the world, like Australia and Korea.”

Workshops in Scots Gaelic, songwriting, and other areas are offered, there’s food and drink available, including the locally brewed Festivale, games of the island sport shinty, and there are likely to be sessions at every local venue after hours, and maybe even on the ferry coming and going to the islands. There’s an after hours festival club, too. The heart of the action, though, is at the An Lanntair Cultural Center for more intimate concerts and under the Big Blue Tent for mainstage events. The tent, in fact, became in some ways an inspiration for Calum Martin this year to compose a theme song for the festival , called ‘Blue on Green.’  “We feel it really conveys the excitement and anticipation generated by our festival, inspired by the Big Blue Tent which hosts our main gigs on the Lews Castle green,” says MacLennan. The tune is available as a free download from www.hebceltfest.com/backstage/downloads.  In addition, the local Harris Tweed Artisans Co-operative has created a design in honor of the festival which will appear on bags, kilts, skirts, jackets, and headwear for sale, and there will also be an exhibit of photographs tracing the history of Scots in Quebec.

Olivier Demers of Le Vent du Nord

Caroline MacLennan has been with the festival since its beginning. There’s a lot of planning, budgeting, and paperwork to be done, but, she says, “on the whole, it’s the best job I’ve ever had.” She’s happily seen attendance grow.  “The other main change since the early days is in the growth of younger festival goers,” she says. “Our family friendly pricing strategy has developed this market.  We get a huge kick out of seeing the younger festival goers proud to support their festival which in turn promotes traditional music and the unique Hebridean language and culture.  You can't ever walk down the streets of Stornoway without bumping into someone sporting our merchandising and we have used this to develop an area on the web site for where you've been with your t-shirt on.  Some great places they've been to!”

The Hebridean Celtic Festival, Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, Scotland
15 through 18 July
tickets and other information available on line at www.hebceltfest.com
and the festival is now on twitter as well, at http://twitter.com/hebcelt

La Bottine Souriante

Kerry Dexter is the Music Editor for Wandering Educators.
Kerry's credits include VH1, CMT, the folk music magazine Dirty Linen, Strings, and The Encyclopedia of Irela nd and the Americas. She also writes about the arts and creative practice at http://www.musicroad.blogspot.com - Music Road. You may reach her at music at wanderingeducators dot com.

HebCelt festival stage photos by Leila Angus @ Brighterstill, courtesy of HebCeltFest
Individual artist photos courtesy of and copyright Kerry Dexter

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