Barbados Celtic Festival online next week

This year’s Barbados Celtic Festival which takes place at the end of May every year, will be online on Facebook – @celticfestivalbarbados.

Festival director Carol Anderson said: “It was with great sadness that we, and our partners BTMI,  had to cancel last year’s festival due to all the pandemic restrictions, but we were determined not to let that happen again, so this year we have a joyous collection of performances from all the past performers from the last 10 years of the festival in Barbados giving short videos of recent or pre-COVID performances we can share with you on our Facebook platform.”

The festival is a great cultural exchange. Normally visiting musicians from Scotland create music workshops in some primary schools which culminate in a school concert enjoyed by the entire school. Bagpipers from Scottish schools have visited secondary schools for presentations. Music is shared from Scotland and Barbados.

“Our last live festival in 2019 attracted the Male Voice Choir, Gwalia singers from Swansea in Wales. Not only did they perform a great concert at the Barbados Museum Theatre, but they also created a flash mob singing Beautiful Barbados at the airport departure lounge on their way home from a great holiday in Barbados to Wales.

The performance was captured on video by a local gentleman who shared it on Facebook and it went viral! I am always keen that our visiting musicians from Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Canada learn some local Bajan songs to include in our repertoire,” Anderson said.

She added: “Visiting pipers and drummers who come on holiday to Barbados take part in our ‘Big Band’ marching through Bridgetown in our festival street parade, with the Barbados Defence Force band in their colourful Zouave uniforms and the cadets with their Scottish Flag ‘Saltire’ jackets. They have enormous fun and many have returned time and again on holiday in Barbados having fallen in love with the island and its people as I did on my first visit in 1999. And they are keen to come back to holiday in Barbados as soon as restrictions on travel ease.”

This year’s online performances include songs from iconic Scottish folk singer Eddi Reader who played at the Plantation Theatre in 2011, the Peatbog Faeries from the island of Skye, Heidi Talbot who played at Holders House in 2013, along with the Alan Kelly Gang from Galway in Ireland.

There will be a live music stream from the band in Canada Old Man Flanagan’s Ghost and many, many others. Riddell Fiddles from the Scottish Borders, a community fiddle folk band who work with the Bajan Schools have recorded something special as have many of the pipers and drummers.

Follow the Barbados Celtic Festival on Facebook @celticfestivalbarbados next week May 25 to 30. (PR)