Heb Celt Fest

The Hebridean Celtic Festival has announced it has added 12 bands and singers from home and abroad for this summer’s four-day event.

The overseas contingent includes the singer songwriter Chastity Brown, from Minneapolis, whose music crosses the blues, folk, jazz, soul and rock genres and has been astounding critics in recent years.

Canadian folk music group Le Vent du Nord, who took Celtic Connections by storm recently, will bring their own vibrant songs and energetic re-working of traditional tunes to the HebCelt stage, while Indian singer-songwriter, producer, and film score composer Raghu Dixit, whose music is an amalgamation of Indian ethnic music and styles from different parts of the world, will add to the multi-cultural aspect of the event.

Michigan roots ensemble Lindsay Lou and The Flatbellys are hailed as a new voice in modern bluegrass, while Jamie Smith's MABON, an inter-Celtic band from Wales, have wowed audiences at major music events in recent years.

Latest acts announced for Heb Celt Fest

12 February 2015

Heading the Scottish contingent at this year’s HebCelt is renowned singer Karen Matheson, who will be heading her own band which includes husband and fellow founder member of Capercaillie, Donald Shaw.

She is joined by singer Siobhan Miller, voted Scots Singer of the Year at the MG Alba Scots Trad Music Awards in 2011 and 2013; and Lewis singer songwriter Iain Morrison, who will launch his latest album at HebCelt.

Also on stage this year will be electro/techno group Halcyon, a three-piece electronic dance band comprising instrumentalists/producers Barry Reid, John Somerville and Adam Sutherland who are well known for their work with many of the top acts on the Scottish music circuit, including Treacherous Orchestra, Peatbog Faeries, Session A9 and Box Club.

HebCelt fans will recognise familiar faces in the new band Malin which combines some of the best Hebridean creative talent, including Jane Hepburn (fiddle), Craig Muirhead (keyboards), Cameron Drummond (pipes), Alasdair Maclean (accordion), and DC Macmillan (drums) as well as the sublime vocals of award-winning Gaelic singer Catriona Watt. The band featured in HebCelt:Land, which was part of the Edinburgh Hogmanay celebrations.

Completing today’s announcement are young indie pop and folk-rock six-piece Sunshine Social, a group of multi-instrumentalists well known to Glasgow audiences and Earths, a folk and punk four-piece from the Borders.