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Date: 10/8/2010
Place: Canada, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton Island
Celtic Colours International Festival is recognized as a world-class event, both locally and internationally. The Festival was named the Tourism Industry Association of Canada 2007 Event of the Year, has received three East Coast Music Awards for Event of the Year, in 2007, 2006 and 2005, a Tourism Association of Nova Scotia's Crystal Award for Events / Conferences 2002, and was named American Bus Association's Top Event in Canada and Attractions Canada's Top Cultural Event in 2001. In recent years, Cape Breton Island has also been recognized by Conde Nast Magazine for its scenic beauty and friendly people (voted number one in the world by its readership) and by National Geographic Traveler as among the top travel destinations in the world.
The Mission of the Celtic Colours International Festival To promote, celebrate and develop Cape Breton's living Celtic culture and hospitality by producing an international festival during the fall colours that builds relationships across Cape Breton Island and beyond.
Since 1997, the Celtic Colours International Festival has featured hundreds of musicians from all over the Celtic world and attracted tens of thousands of visitors to Cape Breton Island. For nine days in October, Cape Breton Island is home to a unique celebration of music and culture as the Celtic Colours International Festival presents dozens of concerts all over the island, an extensive line-up of workshops, a visual art series of exhibitions, and a nightly Festival Club. Over the years, artists have travelled from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, England, Brittany, Spain, Denmark, Germany, and Cuba as well as from across the United States and Canada to join the finest of Cape Breton's musicians, singers, dancers, storytellers and tradition-bearers for the annual Autumn celebration.
One of the things that sets Celtic Colours apart from the vast majority of festivals taking place around the globe is that it isn't limited to just one location. Communities around Cape Breton Island host concerts and workshops at a time when the fall leaves are at their most brilliant and travelling around the island offers one breathtaking view after another. These communities are the places where the culture has been nurtured for over 200 years providing context for the roots of the music and celebrating each community's contribution to our living Celtic culture.
In many of these communities, the local fire hall, parish hall or community centre has hosted musical events for generations, in some cases, literally moving the fire trucks out of the hall to accommodate a dance. Venues for Celtic Colours vary from an 18th Century reconstructed French Chapel to brand new state of the art performance facilities to community halls, but all venues share in common the prominent place each holds in the community it serves. The Celtic culture of music, dance and story telling lives on in these communities and provides foundation for the celebration of living culture that is the Celtic Colours International Festival.
With Celtic Colours International Festival's ambitious schedule (as many as eight concerts each day), it is simply impossible to see and hear everything. The organizers of the Festival realize this and take special care in the programming of each show so that it is possible to get a taste of all that the Festival has to offer on any given day. Whether it's Gaelic singing you are most interested in, or Cape Breton fiddling, or local dance traditions, outstanding accordion playing, perhaps, or an afternoon of world-class bagpiping, Celtic Colours festival-goers can tailor their musical experience to suit their tastes.
Celtic music has seen a resurgence of interest in North America during recent years. Fueled in part by the success and popularity of entertainers like Natalie MacMaster, Buddy MacMaster, the Barra MacNeils, Ashley MacIsaac, the Rankin Family and Rita MacNeil, this interest has focused attention on Cape Breton Island, its music, its people and its culture. Celtic Colours offers the opportunity for visitors to go beyond simply listening to the music. Workshops, offered in many aspects of Celtic and Gaelic culture, allow visitors and residents alike to get the hands-on experience they desire. Host communities around the island present workshops in Gaelic language and song, components of tradition, instrument instruction and traditional dance, as well as offering cultural tours, ceilidhs and a lecture series. They also organize an extensive array of community events including meals and dances.
One of the most popular features of the Celtic Colours International Festival every year is the Festival Club. Located at the Gaelic College in St. Ann's, the Festival Club opens as the evening concerts are closing, offering an opportunity for Festival artists to perform in a more informal setting, or to get a session in with friends and colleagues from near and far. Performance is by invitation only and depends upon artist availability on any given night. Although the license only allows the bar to stay open until 3:00 am, the music has been known to continue well beyond that time.
The festival is held at the height of the island's spectacular fall colours, allowing visitors to enjoy breathtaking scenery as they travel to their next event. Traveling to an event may take a visitor around the pristine Bras d'Or Lakes, Canada's largest saltwater lake, or around the Cabot Trail, often called North America's most scenic drive. Wherever you go in Cape Breton at this time of year, you are bound to find amazing scenery around every turn.
CAPE BRETON ISLAND lies off the north east coast of Nova Scotia, Canada. It is separated from the mainland by the Strait of Canso. The Canso Causeway, completed on December 10, 1954, is the one and only 'road to the isle'.
It is 175 kilometres (110 miles) long and 140 kilometres (87 miles) wide and, to our great delight, has over 1,000 kilometres (650 miles) of Atlantic coastline. In the middle of it all is the Bras d'Or Lakes, a salt water lake system that stretches across the Island from East Bay to West Bay.
Cape Breton's origins began 1200 to 600 million years ago as an island off Africa. Great ferns grew in the swamps that covered most of the land, and dragonflies the size of gulls thrived.Click to enlarge Cabot Trail photo Eventually our island made a slow journey northward and all that shifting and colliding caused the Highlands and canyons to form.
The history books tell us that John Cabot 'discovered' Cape Breton in 1497. He apparently landed at Aspy Bay in Northern Cape Breton and erected a cross there claiming the land for the King of England. …
© Source link: http://www.celtic-colours.com
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