The Celtic Colors International Festival takes place each fall for 9 days and nights on Cape Breton Island. The Festival manages to combine big stages and great Celtic music in more than 40 concerts and 250 community events. Add to that Cape Breton hospitality and Nova Scotia seafood and you have a winning combination.
Cape Breton’s inns, bed and breakfasts and vacation homes open their doors to guests and family from across the Maritime and around the world. Especially Celtic musicians from Scotland, Ireland and Cape Breton, Nova Scotia perform in evening concerts at some venues across the island. Celtic music is becoming more and more popular, but not everyone knows that Cape Breton hosts a big festival, or even knows about Cape Breton Island.
Where is Cape Breton Island, anyway?
Cape Breton Island is located on the east coast of Nova Scotia, with the Atlantic Ocean on one side and St. Lawrence Bay on the other. A spectacular road called the Cabot Trail meanders along the coast, offering great views of the ocean and bay with sightings of the occasional whale or seal, rugged beaches, and a variety of fir, maple, and birch trees. Quaint towns with community centers and churches are found along the route. The people are almost universally friendly, helpful, and hospitable, often descendants of Celts, French Acadians, and the native Mi’kmaq who live on Cape Breton Island.
What is special about Cape Breton Island?
The scenery is so beautiful that Cape Breton is often ranked among the top 10 islands in the world. The latest rating, Travel and Leisure, ranked it #4 in the world and #1 for beauty in continental North America. The Cabot Trail itself is rated the #1 trip by Reader’s Digest and thousands of people from around the world arrive each season to ride the Cabot to learn about Celtic, French Acadian and Mi’kmaq culture, and eat fabulous Nova Scotian seafood. —especially lobster, mussels and digby scallops.
The Home of Great Musicians and Traditions
Cape Breton has always been home to great musicians, including families like the Rankins, the Barra Macneils, and of course the MacMasters. The most famous Cabo Breton musician today is the violinist, dancer and beauty Natalie MacMaster.
Some say there is something in the Cape Breton water that nurtures fiddlers who preserve a unique musical tradition, somewhat like the ancient Scottish and Irish Celtic music from which it is derived. Natalie is part of the famous MacMaster family; Buddy, her uncle, being a well-known violin-playing predecessor.
Natalie herself tours the world and is a great ambassador for both the music and the family/community spirit that nurtures great Cape Breton musicians. In fact, during the off-season, it can be argued that music keeps everyone going. There are kitchen parties and celebrations that go on and on, with more and more food and music thrown into the mix.
Celtic Colors started in 1997 and happens every October
Two Cape Bretonans, Jouella Foulds and Max MacDonald, have taken these hallmarks of Cape Breton—music and scenery—and turned them into the basis of an annual festival held every October, usually the second week. The Festival celebrates 13 years
Celtic Colors occurs at the top of the fall foliage, which can be seen driving around the island during the day. At night, there are concerts all over the Island. Great musicians come from Scotland, Ireland, the United States and Canada, in short, from any place where Celtic music is present. And visitors come from all over the world.
After the concerts, there is a big concert/jam session at the Festival Club. Every night from 11 pm to 4 am, the musicians gather at Gaelic College on the Cabot Trail and you never know what combination of fiddles, piano, bagpipes, singing and step dancing you’ll witness on any given night (or very early in the morning). )
During the day there are art workshops and acoustic and cultural music. There are even free concerts sponsored and broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Company. To top it off, Canadian Thanksgiving usually occurs during this time. This year the dates are October 9-17 and the focus is Irish music.
Says Joella Foulds, Artistic Director and Celtic Colors International Festival: “We are always learning and growing in our understanding of Celtic cultures around the world. This year we plan a main focus on Ireland throughout the festival. We want to compare and contrast musical traditions that we share with our Irish cousins.
The exact foliage timing cannot be predicted, but great Celtic music, scenery, Nova Scotia seafood, and hospitality are a sure thing.