The 16th annual Celtic Connections festival gets underway this Thursday in Glasgow. The festival which takes place every January (15 January - 1 February this year) also launches the Homecoming Scotland festivities in 2009.
Although the festival has a distinctly roots and world music flavour to it, the line-up of some 1500 artists includes names from jazz, indie rock, reggae, and classical styles.
One of the star attractions in this year's programme of over 300 events, is Senegalese singer and African supergroup leader Youssou N'Dour, while folkies will find plenty of other enticing, homegrown acts.
This being the 250th anniversary of the birth of Scotland's national bard Robert Burns, the festival will be celebrating with a twelve hour Burns song marathon. Auld Lang Syne, on 24 January, will feature some of Scotland’s leading musicians and singers, including Dougie MacLean, Karen Matheson, Michael Marra, Karine Polwart, Dick Gaughan, John McCusker and Phil Cunningham.
On Burns Night itself, the RSNO will perform the world premiere of The Homecoming Scotland Suite – a series of eight brand new commissions featuring guest musicians, among them New Orleans jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis.
The ever versatile, dub stars of the reggae world Sly and Robbie are a surprise entry in the Celtic Connections programme performing a Jamaican Burns Night at the Fruitmarket, taking inspiration from what might have been had Burns made his planned trip to Jamaica.
The festival forms a deep pool of talent with acts such as New Orleans legends Dr. John and Allen Toussaint, New York blues master Eric Bibb and Michael Nyman (composer of The Piano soundtrack) featuring on same bill as folk favourites Judy Collins, Kate Rusby, Kathy Mattea, Lúnasa, Dervish, Shooglenifty, The Sharon Shannon Big Band, Julie Fowlis, Blazin’ Fiddles, Karine Polwart, Rachel Unthank and The Winterset and Drever, McCusker, Woomble.
Elsewhere you can find Edwyn Collins playing with the reunited Bluebells and Cerys Matthews, and a Shoeshine Records showcase night at the ABC with headliners Attic Lights joined by Norman Blake and Euros Childs, and BMX Bandits.
This year’s Classic Albums strand will see three records performed in their entirety: Richard Thompson’s 1000 Years of Popular Music, Battlefield Band’s Home is Where the Van Is and Catriona McKay’s Starfish.
The festival also features concerts with Gaelic poetry, a concert tracing the African roots of the banjo, and a concert celebrating the links between Scotland and Cape Breton in Canada, featuring the fiddle talents of Jerry Holland, J.P.Cormier and Ashley MacIsaac.
The proceedings start with a torchlight procession on Thursday at 4.45pm, from George Square to the Concert Hall steps, where the festival is officially pronounced open.