Hi, the KVMR Celtic Festival Draws Over 10,000 People to the Nevada
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Hi, The KVMR Celtic Festival draws over 10,000 people to the Nevada County Fairgrounds for headline music and festivities on the first weekend in October. It's the biggest single fundraiser for community radio KVMR - a stunning event and a defining moment for the community. Please contact me for a feature story on the event. I'll gladly provide press passes and line up advance interviews with headliners. LOTS of great photos available. THANKS, Peter Peter Wilson 530-477-0708 - office 530-913-5534 - cell [email protected] WHO: Community Radio KVMR 89.5 FM WHAT: 19th Annual KVMR Celtic Festival WHEN: Friday, Saturday & Sunday, October 2-4 10:00 am to 10:00PM on Saturday 10:00 am to 8:00PM on Sunday Seniors are admitted at 9:00 am on Sunday only for complimentary coffee, scones and preferred seating. Friday, October 2, 4:00 to 7:00PM - FREE Youth Arts Program 7:30 to 11:00 – Ceilidh Dance WHERE: Nevada County Fairgrounds 11228 McCourtney Rd, Grass Valley, CA 95949 TICKETS: $12 - $50, Camping and RV hookups are available Tickets at http://www.kvmr.org/celticfestival/tickets.htm or by calling 530-265-9073 Information at [email protected] or 530-265-9073 WEBPAGE: www.kvmrcelticfestival.org CONTACT: Peter Wilson, [email protected], 530-913-3345 HIGH RESOLUTION PHOTOS - http://kvmrcelticfestival.org/press-room/ LOTS of great photos available ****************************** The 19th annual KVMR Celtic Festival and Marketplace mixes Celtic music and magic October 2, 3 & 4 in Grass Valley, California at the Nevada County Fairgrounds, a bucolic setting on 100 acres among giant ponderosa pines . There are eight stages and performance areas. Our main stage hosts many of the best Celtic musicians on the world stage. The Nevada County Fairgrounds is transformed into a Celtic Village and headline concert venue. World-famous Celtic musicians perform on our main stage to. Mainstage musical headliners for this year include Galician piper Carlos Nuñez, Irish squeeze box master Sharon Shannon, Irish sister quartet Screaming Orphans, Boston fiddler Hanneke Cassel, Irish singer/songwriters Cassie & Maggie MacDonald, Celtic rockers Daimh̀ , California duo Paul Kamm & Eleanore MacDonald, Sacramento’s own One Eyed Reilly and many more. Shopping and dining opportunities abound with over 50 vendors and a complete Irish Pub. Hundreds of regional performers, singers, bagpipers, actors, jugglers and storytellers roam the fairgrounds. We will again be offering our Free Friday Youth Arts Program, giving local students ages 10-18 the opportunity to participate in workshops with headline performers. Also returning will be the Friday night Ceilidh – a Celtic party with music, dancing and revelry under the stars. Musicians are encouraged to bring their instruments and join in with jam sessions and workshops scheduled throughout the weekend. History buffs can explore several encampments of “Guilds” who re-create points and places in time. Exciting and educational, the Celtic Animals exhibit houses falcons, eagles, hawks, owls, sheep and ponies. Revelers make music into the night in the campgrounds complete with tall trees and a lake. Camping and RV hookups are available on-site. Amateur and professional athletes test their strength and skill in Scottish Games. Children are kept engaged with arts and crafts, story telling, and romping on the straw bales. We hope you and your family will join us for this year’s KVMR Celtic Festival. FREE YOUTH ARTS PROGRAM - Friday, October 2 from 4:00 to 7:00PM The Celtic Festival's Friday Youth Arts Program has grown to be a wonderful afternoon of music, magic, dance and arts instruction for aspiring artists. Participants, ages 10-18, learn from world-class artists and festival headliners. Youth participants in the program can take 1-3 consecutive workshops of their choice. The FREE program includes workshops and a discounted youth day pass for attendees. ************************* FRIDAY NIGHT CEILIDH - Friday, October 2 from 7:30PM This year the KVMR Celtic Festival will get a running start on Friday night with our first-ever Friday Night Ceilidh - an evening of Celtic music and dance featuring Reel of Seven and internationally acclaimed dance caller Linda Henderson. Reel of Seven is considered one of the country’s premier Celtic dance bands featuring Andy Imbrie on piano, fiddler Deby Benton Grosjean, cellist Renata Bratt, with percussionist Gary Campus keeping the beat. They've released two CDs and have collectively performed throughout USA and abroad. There’ll be line, circle, and couple dancing for all ages and abilities. No need to come with a partner - it’s a great way to socialize and meet friends. The Friday Night Ceilidh will be held at the Ponderosa Hall at the Nevada County Fairgrounds with indoor space for dancing, an outdoor deck with food and a full service pub, and beautiful garden space for relaxing and enjoying the evening. ************************* Carlos Núñez “…if it’s possible to become a pop star playing traditional music on bagpipes and recorder, Núñez could be the man,” -Los Angeles Times Few pop stars pack the energy, virtuosity, imagination, daring, and charisma into their concerts and recordings as Galician multi-instrumentalist Carlos Núñez does. He is the world’s most famous player of the gaita, the bagpipes of Galicia, Spain’s northwest, Atlantic Ocean- abutting region rich in vibrant, uniquely expressive Celtic traditional music. Nevertheless, several decades ago Paddy Moloney, leader of the celebrated Irish traditional band the Chieftains, called Galicia “the unknown Celtic country,” implying that traditional music as exciting as Galicia’s was overdue for a global breakout in awareness and acclaim. Like the Chieftains, who became Ireland’s foremost ambassadors of Irish traditional music by spreading its appeal internationally, Carlos Núñez has become Galicia’s foremost traditional music ambassador by doing the same. He takes that important responsibility very seriously but without a shred of self- importance. Born in 1971 and raised in the Galician port of Vigo, where he initially picked up the gaita at age eight, Carlos both embodies and reflects the irrepressible spirit of his native music. But he also understands the pitfalls of traditional music becoming incrementally complacent in approach and insulated from innovation. Under those conditions, even the heartiest music can eventually slip into predictability. Carlos respects and seeks to safeguard Galicia’s musical legacy while also skillfully exploring fresh, fascinating realms of possibility for it. In 1994 The Chieftains, whom Carlos had initially met at Lorient’s Inter-Celtic Festival, invited Carlos to perform with them at New York City’s Carnegie Hall. It was a highly auspicious U.S. concert debut by him, and since then he has toured and recorded several times with the Chieftains, including on their albums Voice of Ages (2012), San Patricio (2010), The Long Black Veil (1995), and Santiago (Carlos worked closely with Moloney in developing this Galician-sparked, Spanish-focused project from 1996). The latter two CD’s earned Grammy awards, and Carlos as a solo artist received Latin Grammy nominations for Os Amores Libres in 2000 andMayo Longo in 2001. The gaita is Galicia’s signature sonic symbol, dating back at least to the 11th century, and Carlos’s utter mastery of this bagpipe has been integral to its rising popularity inside and outside Spain. His ability in fingering the chanter to bend, extend, or cut notes, sustain and change tempos, explore harmonic nuances and tonal colors, and complement and counterpoint other musicians’ playing is nothing short of astonishing, and those musical hallmarks are not limited to his playing of the gaita. At the Royal Conservatory in Madrid, Carlos took lessons on the recorder, for which he received the highest possible grades, but it was his subsequent self-training that raised his proficiency level to studio and concert-hall quality. “The recorder is a very personal, intimate instrument,” Carlos pointed out. “The gaita has drones, so its sound is powerfully earthy. With the recorder, you can fly like a bird.” Carlos’s instrumental arsenal also includes the ocarina, assorted whistles, Scottish highland pipes, uilleann (Irish) pipes, bombarde (a kind of Breton oboe), biniou koz (Breton bagpipes), and pastoral pipes (18th-century precursor of the uilleann pipes). This impressive panoply of instruments provides Carlos and his audiences with a variety of textures matched to that of his repertoire. On Inter-Celtic, Carlos’s range is again exemplary and exhilarating, abetted by his own core band and another star-studded roster of special guests. Among the other 14 standout tracks are “Vento das Cies” (exuberant muiñeira, or Galician traditional jig, featuring button accordionist Sharon Shannonand bouzouki-bodhrán player Dónal Lunny from Ireland), “Gavotte/Pandeirada” (atmospheric, animated pairing of harper Alan Stivell’s Breton- steeped composition and a Galician tune), “Two Shores” (poignant Galician melody principally played by U.S. guitar ace Ry Cooder and Carlos that came from a 19th-century Galician zarzuela, or folk opera), “Is the Big Man Within?” (lively Irish traditional jig played by Carlos with the Irish traditional band Altan), and “Over Nine Waves” (Carlos’s beautiful, contemplative composition inspired by the legendary story of the ancient Milesians, who sailed from northern Spain to Ireland and became ancestors of the Celtic populace there, a number of whose descendants would emigrate centuries later to northern Spain and especially Galicia to escape hardship). Building strong, durable bridges between distinct yet kindred Celtic traditions with passion and care, he remains a global force to be reckoned with in all of music today. www.carlos-nunez.com www.facebook.com/pages/Carlos-Núñez/ ************************* Sharon Shannon “This is music of many layers and various resonances… Nothing, though quite prepares one for the beast that is ‘Flying Circus’, an acoustic guitar begins a strum, which Sharon takes up, giving the signal for all hell to break loose.