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Tickets for the Festival Ceilidh
night will
go on sale on Thursday June 25th
at 9.00am from TicketWeb and A.P.
Taylors, Main Street,
Campbeltown.
For on-line sales click
here
This years Festival Ceilidh on
Friday the 21st in the Victoria
Hall is a night that offers all
the family an evening that goes
with a swing. The ever popular
Fergie MacDonald will
provide the ceilidh set with
concert sets being provided a
band that has travelled all the
way for Richmond, Virginia to
perform, Hot Seats and
the Suzanne Houston Band.
The Kintyre Schools Pipe Band
will start the night in their
usual rousing style in what
promises to be a night to
remember.
Fergie MacDonald - Long
before he developed a second
career as the notorious foil for
Phil Cunningham’s onstage
stories, Fergie MacDonald had
regal status.
As
the Ceilidh King, Fergie took
the authentic, raw and right
ceilidh dance band style to
village halls across the length
and breadth of the Scottish
Highlands and Islands. Fergie
and his band were stars. A
button accordion player he has
been Scotland's top ceilidh band
leader for almost half a century
having recorded over 23 albums
in his career.
Playing the button box, Fergie is
a regular performer on B.B.C.
Scottish dance music programmes
and was the first Scottish band
leader to broadcast ceilidh
music. He is a legend in the
Scottish Highlands where he and
his band are always in demand
for ceilidhs and wherever
there's a need for great dancing
music.
Fergie's current dance band is:
Fergie MacDonald, Hugh MacCallum,
John MacDonald, Morve Fergie
MacDonald
The concert set will be provided
by Hot Seats from
Richmond, Virginia, USA. This
white-hot five-piece from the
hills of Virginia, caused a
sensation at last years
Edinburgh Festival Fringe when
they carried off a Herald Angel
for their outstanding
contribution to the event
following a seven-night run at
The Famous Spiegeltent.
The buzz created on their first
ever visit to these shores,
guaranteed that all other UK
dates were sell-out events,
including the London debut.
They won a clutch of five-star
reviews, went on to be stand-out
act at Maverick magazine’s huge
music weekend in Suffolk, “fave
rave” at the Summer Sundae
Festival in Leicester – and won
an invitation to return for
their own headline show at
Glasgow’s Celtic Connections
Festival where they got a
standing ovation from a capacity
crowd following another
whiz-bang performance.
The band had been together for
seven years, before graduating
on to the US festivals circuit,
fine-tuning their skills on the
redneck bars and college clubs
circuit where they experimented
with a suitcase-full of assorted
toys to supplement the
guitar/mandolin/banjo/fiddle/bass
line-up, employing everything
from kazoo and jawharp to
washboard, tin can percussion
and Chinese blocks.
Their original music is
simultaneously hard to classify
and instantly identifiable,
combining the virtuosic soloing
and tightness of bluegrass, the
band-driven rhythm of old time,
the jerky bounce of ragtime, and
the swagger of good old rock and
roll. Add some eastern European
melodies, a few modernist ideals
and an uncanny feel for comic
timing, and you begin to get the
full picture.
In
2007, Aaron Lewis won the
highest accolade possible at the
world-famous Galax Fiddlers’
Convention when he was named
Champion Fiddler, and the band
took 1st Prize in the
Neo-Traditional category of the
Clifftop (Virginia) Appalachian
String Band Festival in 2008.
Suzanne Houston Band:
Suzanne Houston is a pianist,
singer of both Scots and Gaelic
song, whistle player and
flautist. She is currently based
in Glasgow studying Scottish
Music at RSAMD and is perusing a
career in Scottish Traditional
Music.
At
Celtic Connections 2008 Suzanne
was fortunate in winning a Danny
Kyle award alongside fiddler
Neil Ewart. Suzanne was a
semi-final in the Young Trad
Musician Of The Year 2009 award.
Although she is at the beginning
of her career she has had a lot
of performance experience
through the Gaelic arts
organisation "Feisean Nan
Gaidheal". This has included
performing at "Beat The Drum" in
August 2007, which was a
festival directed by the band
Runrig, and on the Ceol Nam Feis
tour in June 2007. In addition
to this, she was part of the
Feis Chataibh Celildh Trail
2005-07, touring Sutherland each
summer, performing at the Blas
festival and recording a live
album each year.
Suzanne attended the National
Centre Of Excellence In
Traditional Music in Plockton
for 3 years. During this time
she was part of events such as
the Trad Music Awards 2005, the
First Showcase For The Centres
Of Excellence and the Sorley
MacLean Project under Highland
2007, as well as annual tours
with the centre.
During Suzanne's final year at
the centre she recorded an 11
track solo album, "Stay Tuned",
much of which she composed
herself, which was released on a
small scale. Suzanne appears at
the MOK Fest with her band which
has been put together especially
for the event.
Kintyre School Pipe Band:
The KSPB need little
introduction since their
inception they have been
prolific in winning practically
everything they have entered
often more than once. They have
opened the Festival Ceilidh for
the past few years on some
occasions it was first official
public appearance since winning
the World Pipe Band
Championships the week before.
The sight of the full band
performing in the Victoria Hall
can be quite breathtaking and
makes it well worth turning up
early for. |
