Breahhach Plays Proctors GE Theater Passport Series, Friday, Oct. 11, 2024
Spin a globe.
Close your eyes and point at it, blind.
If your finger hasn’t landed in an ocean, odds are there’s music where you’re pointing.
And, odds are, Music Haven has brought that music here, from wherever – or will.
After winding down its summer season of free Central Park shows, Music Maven moves indoors to Proctors GE Theatre or Universal Preservation Hall. In whichever venue, the music is international. And this season it begins with Breabach from Scotland on Friday, October 11, in Proctors GE Theatre (432 State St., Schenectady).
Right – I wasn’t sure how to pronounce the band’s name either. The HowToPronounce site shows two options: “BREE Ah bach” and “Neh-buck.” But we digress.
Photo from Breabach web site
However it’s pronounced, Breabach sounds every bit as strong as their fellow Celtic folk updaters across the Irish Sea, the great Irish bands Lunasa and Solas.
On seven albums, Breabach’s stringband instrumentals give the music melodic wings while vocals ground it in stories and soul. (OK, so there’s bagpipes and whistles, too…)
Their latest release, their seventh, is titled “Fàs,” Gaelic for “growth.” They earn it in pastoral sounds inspired by Scotland’s scenery and cultural atmosphere. But they also expand on their folkloric sound with a new and more ambitious sonic experimentation.
Onstage it impressed Edinburgh’s The Scotsman newspaper this way: “As polished as it was passionate, matching fiery intensity with exquisite finesse, this was a magnificent set.”
Beloved at home, Breabach also goes international with cross-ocean collaborators including the indigenous Australian folklorists Moana and the Tribe & The Black Arm Band; Le Vent du Nord in Quebec, numerous bands at Celtic Colors on Cape Breton Island, even video game composer Big Giant Circles; and they collaborated with BAFTA-award-winning animator Cat Bruce on the soundtrack of his short film “Dusgadh.”
Breabach is Megan Henderson, fiddle; James Lindsay, double bass; Calum MacCrimmon, highland bagpipe, whistle, and bouzouki; Conal McDonagh, highland bagpipe and whistle; and Ewan Robertson, guitar and cajon. They all sing, and Henderson step-dances.
In 19 years on tour, they’ve played around the world including Sydney Opera House, New York’s Central Park; the Cambridge Folk Festival, and WOMAD New Zealand. Their awards include six “Scots Trad Music Awards,” nominations as ‘Best Group’ (BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards), Songlines’s “European Album of the Year” and the “Quarterly Critic’s Choice” at the German Record Critic’s Awards.
The new Music Haven Proctors Passport Series presents:
Friday, October. 11: Breabach (Scotland) at GE Theatre
Friday, Feb. 7: Nathan and the Zydeco Cha Chas (Louisiana, musically a nation all its own) at Universal Preservation Hall (hereafter UPH)
Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025: Plena Libre (Puerto Rico) at GE Theatre
Saturday, March 29, 2025: Moonlight Benjamin (Haiti) at UPH
Friday, Apr. 11, 2025: Damir Imamovic (Bosnia-Herzegovina) at GE Theatre
Saturday, April. 26, 2025: Vieux Farka Touré (Mali) at UPH
Like A Place for Jazz, Proctors Passport Series offers a season ticket discount: six shows for the price of four: $130.80/season, or $30 per show if bought singly.
All shows 7:30 p.m. 518-346-6204 www.proctors.org
No globe at home, spin this: https://www.amcharts.com/demos/rotating-globe/
Hoke's Jukebox 