Late summer into early fall is a season all its own. Leaves begin to turn, but not quite yet, summer breezes begin to have an edge of colder times, but maybe not just yet.
Then seasons turn, and autumn arrives.
On Cape Breton Island, in the north of the province of Nova Scotia in Atlantic Canada, this change of seasons also means it's time for Celtic Colours.
Celtic Colours International Festival celebrates the music stories, heritage, and welcome of this place. Across time, people from Mi'kmaq First Nations, Scotland, and Ireland made homes here, as did people from New England in the US, and Acadian/French speaking Canada.
All that makes up part of the music and culture of Cape Breton. It also takes in influences from sea, mountain, and shore.
That is a lot to celebrate, and there's a lot going on during Celtic Colours, which runs for nine days in the early part of October. There are dozens of featured concerts, and even more community events, among them art exhibits, hands on ways to learn baking, weaving, and other crafts, nature walks, pumpkin carving, sessions you can join in, a Gaelic song circle, and lots more.
Here is just a bit of what's going on, with several songs and tunes from musicians who will be appearing this year. Another reason I am telling you about the festival just now is that you may well have the chance to see more of it.
It has become a Celtic Colours tradition to stream one concert each evening live. The schedule is often announced just a short time before each broadcast. In 2026, Celtic Colours runs 9 through 17 October.
These songs and tunes work well to get you in the spirit of Celtic Colours. They last and have presence long after festival time is done.
Photo: Celtic Colours Facebook
Rose Morrison comes from Baddeck in Cape Breton. She first made her mark as a musician as a young teenager when she brought her creative fiddle chops to The Cottars, a quartet of young musicians who brought Cape Breton music to many countries and won awards along the way. Later she spent time living and playing music in Europe, especially in Ireland. Known for her fiddle work, Rose had been writing songs all along, only bringing this aspect of her music to the fore in recent years. She's also a talented visual artist.
Let Our Love is, as you might think from the title, a love song, one of affirmation, strength, and hope. Brian Doyle, who joins Rose on guitar, will also be appearing at the festival this season.
Mairi Rankin, who comes from Mabou, is known for her fiery fiddle playing and for composing music which often draws on her roots in Scotland's Outer Hebrides. You will hear both of those things as Mairi plays a duet with cellist Eric Wright.
Kathleen MacInnes comes from those very Outer Hebrides herself. She's been named Gaelic singer of the year at the Scots Trad awards, and in another year, was awarded best traditional album of the year. She will be appearing on the festival's opening night as a guest with The Unusual Suspects of Celtic Colours (more about them in a bit), and at several other concerts, as well. Here Kathleen sings a lively song in Gaelic in a clip from an earlier Celtic Colours. Laoise Kelly from Ireland, who you'll find on harp in this video, often performs with Kathleen as well as on her own, both of which she'll be doing at this season's Celtic Colours.
American fiddle player and composer Chicago-based Liz Carroll, another top award winner (Gradam Ceoil in Ireland, Heritage Fellow in the US, and others) is returning to the festival this year, where she'll team up with Jake Charron from Prince Edward Island. In this video, though, she is joined by Scottish composer, singer, and guitar player Jenn Butterworth. I've not heard that Jenn is returning to the festival this season, but she has often attended in the past, at times as producer of concerts by students on the traditional music course at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, where she teaches. Here, Liz and Jenn are playing two tunes written by Liz.
Corrina Dawn and Dave Milligan have been coming to Celtic Colours as a duo and with other bands and artists since the festival's second year. One of their projects, which they will do again this autumn, is work as musical directors of The Unusual Suspects of Celtic Colours. That's an orchestra or big band of folk musicians: fiddles, bagpipes, guitars, harps, keyboards, and more...which came out of an idea Corrina and Dave first put together with Scottish folk musicians in Glasgow for Celtic Connections. They were invited to see if they could create a Cape Breton version, and they did. This will be the fourth time they have done so at Celtic Colours. There's a fair chance you will get to see that, too, as The Unusual Suspects of Celtic Colours are set to be the opening concert of this season's festival, so it may well be one of the concerts that is streamed online.
All that said, here are Corrina and Dave on their own, having a fine time with a tune which Corrina was commissioned to write for a birthday gift.
Enjoy exploring this taste of the music of Celtic Colours. May the work of these musicians lift your spirits this season and beyond.
Thank you for staying with us through this journey. Below, you'll find a link that will take you to an article which has a bit more backstory on the series. It also has links to a number of the stories, including ones called Listening for Community, Music for Winter's Changes, and The Geography of Hope.
Kerry Dexter is Music Editor at Wandering Educators.
You may find more of Kerry's work in National Geographic Traveler, Strings, Perceptive Travel, Journey to Scotland, Irish Fireside, and other places, as well as at her own site, Music Road. You can also read her work at Along the Music Road on Substack.