CATRIONA McKAY...
Elegant, intuitive and innovative, Catriona McKay is taking the harp where it has never been before.
A member of the outstanding Shetland band Fiddlers Bid and an occasional musical partner to fiddle
player Chris Stout and organist Simon Nieminski, Catriona first gained wide acclaim winning the Jakez
Francois International Celtic Harp Competition in France in 2004. She followed it by being named
instrumentalist of the year at the 2007 Scots Trad Music Awards and last year picked up the album
of the year for Starfish, her debut solo album that ranges brilliantly from melancholy slow airs to up-
tempo percussive tour de forces, mostly written and arranged by herself.
KATHY MATTEA...
Part-Scots, part-Welsh and part-Italian, Kathy Mattea

feels completely at home in the company of Celts.
After dropping out of school she wound up as a tour guide at Nashville’s Country Music Hall Of Fame
TIC CONNECTIONS by day and a singer and songwriter by night. It eventually paid dividends when she had a hit with a
cover of Nanci Griffith’s Love At The Five And Dime in 1986 and she has subsequently made a series of
CEL
sublime albums rewarded with a couple of Grammies. Few have meant more to her, though, than her
latest CD, Coal, inspired by and intimately revealing much about her own background and upbringing
in Coalwood, West Virginia.
AILIE ROBERTSON...
One of the superb young harpists determinedly reviving the popularity of the harp, Ailie Robertson
combines supreme technical expertise with rich invention and a desire to challenge both herself and
her instrument of choice. A member of the band The Outside Track, a harp teacher and, long adept
in both folk and classical music, she has won numerous awards in Scots traditional music circles. Yet
she has surpassed herself with her evocative and constantly surprising debut album First Things First,
blending her own tunes with the Scots and Irish tradition, boldly taking it in new directions. One of the
most exciting new stars emerging from the Scots folk scene.
DREVER McCUSKER WOOMBLE...
On paper this is an unlikely alliance. After a decade with the Battlefield Band and many years with Kate
Rusby, fiddle icon John McCusker has teamed up with Idlewild singer Roddy Woomble and Orkney’s
fast-blossoming guitarist/singer Kris Drever for one of those casual experiments you never think will
work…but occasionally do. In this case their impromptu session in McCusker’s house resulted in Before
The Ruin, one of the most mysterious yet charming albums of last year. Woomble wrote the words
and sings the songs, the other two hone the tunes and decorate them with stark, sparing, yet beautiful
arrangements. It’s special. It’s really, really special.
LE VENT DU NORD...
Few others at Celtic Connections this year are likely to kick up as much dust as the wondrous Le Vent
Du Nord, who take Quebecois music to exhausting levels of intensity and excitement. They fully utilise
the parallels between traditional Celtic and Quebecois music with a volley of hurdy gurdy, fiddle,
accordion, guitar, full-blooded vocals and high energy. There’s been one or two changes along the way
since they originally formed in Vancouver in 2002 but the joyous passion remains the same, as proven
by the success of last year’s Dans Les Airs album, nominated as one of the best world albums of the
year by PopMatters magazine.
MOISHE’S BAGEL...
Nobody sounds quite like Moishe’s Bagel, the foot-stomping,

part-improvised Edinburgh band with
an inexhaustible appetite for decimating musical barriers, gleefully drawing on Jewish klezmer, Middle
Eastern rhythms, wild jazz, Balkan music, Scots tradition and unusual Eastern European dance in their
quest to surprise and keep us on our toes. They’re not concerned with authenticity, concentrating
instead on music that moves and inspires them, paying no heed to rules or musical convention. Their
music is thrilling, funny and utterly infectious, making their second album Salt one of the must-have
CDs of the last year for anyone with open ears.
Click on any ALBUM COVER to buy now
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