And you thought that the Celtic World consisted of Scotland, Ireland, Cape Breton…and a couple of other places that you can’t pronounce. Well, think again!
The influence of Celtic music is far-reaching and springs forth from small settlements of people of Celtic origin in some unusual place. After all, you can attend the Hawaiian Highland Games and a quartet of Inverness Country traditional musicians just returned from a massive Celtic festival in France.
Still and all, just about the last place that you would expect to find a vibrant Celtic culture is in Cuba. Much like Cape Breton, many of the people came to the island 150 to 200 years ago and brought with them the music, language and culture of their homeland. A good number of those were from Asturias and Galicia in northern Spain, an area where the music was strong and the common instruments was the gaiti, a form of bagpipes.
A number of Cuban pipers came to Celtic Colours International Festival in 2008, impressing all who they met them with their talents. In the spring of 2009 a group of Cape Bretoners made the trek to the Caribbean island, including musicians Chrissy Crowley and Dawn Beaton. Now plans are underway for CeltFest Cuba, an official event promoting the Celtic music and culture, to be held in the spring, and to feature a number of Cape Breton musicians.
More details will follow as I get them but if you want more information you can go to the CeltFest Cuba Official Myspace location at www.myspace.com/CeltFestCuba.
Until next time
Dan
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Hello there! I'm Marcel Nazabal, one of the Cuban pipers that performanced last year, and also i performanced this year at the Festival Club!! I'm the Marketing Director of Celt Fest Cuba, I'm still in NS, i'm in Halifax right now. I've been connecting with many musicians from Cape Breton that will attend to go down to Cuba for this venue, right now Chrissy Crowley, Andrea Beaton and Jerry Holland Jr. have already booked their flight to Havana. If you need some updates please feel free to contact me.
ReplyDeleteKinds regards.
Marcel Nazabal
Marketing Director of
Celt Fest Cuba
marcellg21@yahoo.com