By KATHERINE LJUNGQVIST/YachatsNews.com

When the four-member traditional Scottish-Irish music group Beolach takes the stage next Saturday night to headline the 2019 Yachats Celtic Music Festival, it’s not an accident that they traveled the continent from Nova Scotia.

It’s because festival music director Stephen Farish of Waldport spends months researching artists, making connections and trying to coax well-known Celtic performers to Yachats in order to put together musical programs expected to fill the Yachats Commons and Little Log Church all weekend.

The result is a revived and growing festival that for the 19^th year will draw ardent fans of Scottish and Irish music to three days of performances and workshops Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 8-10.

“We’re getting better,” says Farish, “We’re getting better at it. And the music’s getting better, which has to do with the time I, and we, spend researching the music. I’m reaching out and appearing more serious to better bands and artists.”

The three-day event now draws experienced musicians from across North America to the Oregon coast, where audiences can get swept up in the rich culture of Celtic music. It could be, organizers with Polly Plumb Productions say, their best music lineup in years.

Farish spends six to eight months of the year researching and reaching out to Celtic musicians. He credits his findings to the many hours he spends watching YouTube videos and listening to KLCC’s Mist Covered Mountain.

Although he is humble about the breath of his knowledge of the genre, Farish doesn’t falter when speaking of the origins of Celtic music and some of the French and Cajun themes that can be detected in some pieces.

A carpenter by trade, Farish began volunteering with the festival in 2012 after having been involved with the Newport Celtic Music Festival and Highland Games.

“I’ve been a lifelong appreciator of Celtic music,” he says. “I was the kid in the fourth grade who, when they played music from around the world and most kids were snickering, I was grooving to it.”

While Farish is not a professional musician, his passion for music has led to his involvement in the festival.

“In 2010 I was looking for something to do, an opportunity.”

That opportunity grew in importance four years later when Farish took on the role of festival music director, responsible for researching and obtaining performers.

Celtic music explained

Celtic music is a traditional genre with Irish, Scottish, and Welsh origins, traveling across the globe both influencing and being influenced by the communities where it takes hold.

“It is the grandparent of our American music genres,” says Robert Rubin, a Polly Plumb Productions board member. “While bluegrass might seem the most obvious, country music was also influenced by Celtic music. Irish and Scottish immigrants began arriving in the colonies long before the Revolution. [And] musicians brought their instruments.”

When those refugees and immigrants landed in eastern Canada, their music became deeply rooted in the region, where, to this day, many great Celtic musicians can be found.

 

There will be a number of familiar instruments seen on festival stages and in workshops — guitars, fiddles, accordions, and even bagpipes. But there will also be exotic instruments that help accentuate and distinguish the music from its American sub-genres including Celtic harps, Ukranian bandura, Swedish nyckelharpa, octave mandolins, and more.

To hear this traditional music recorded is one thing, Farish and Rubin believe, but to see them preformed live and accompanied by traditional step dance and harmonizing vocals in both English and Gaelic is an entirely different experience.

Beòlach won’t be the only group attending from across the continent. Nova Scotian sisters Cassie and Maggie MacDonald will perform all three days of the festival. There will also be appearances by Gillian Boucher and Bob McNeill also of Nova Scotia, Kennedy and Eamon O’Leary of North Carolina, and Vishtén, a trio from eastern Canada. Audiences will be delighted to see acts like Lisa Lynne and Aryeh Frankfurter of San Francisco, and “Piper on the Point” Kevin Carr of Quebec returning to the stage this year. These musicians will perform all three days of the festival, with interludes of improvisational sessions that are free to the public.

The festival also offers free workshops in harp playing and step dancing, regionally inspired food by Hetzler and the Drift Inn, and a single malt whisky tasting event hosted by John Robbins of Yachats.

Tickets, including all-day passes, to shows at the Yachats Commons are being sold through the website BrownPaperTickets. Tickets for performances at the Little Log Church are $20 and sold only at the door.

Difficult times

The festival hasn’t always experienced this degree of success. Farish admits that between 2013 and 2016 the festival began to “flounder.”

“We lost some of our sense of direction, even tried to incorporate a bluegrass/Americana theme into the music lineup,” he said. “There was talk of changing the name to the ‘Rainspout Festival’ and going with a more ‘folksy’ theme.”

Ticket sales suffered. Farish’s intuition told him to “go back to the Celtic festival roots and revive the original intent.” He wasn’t wrong.

The festival is produced by Polly Plumb Productions, the Yachats based nonprofit arts organization headed by Linda Hetzler, owner of The Drift Inn. In 2016, Hetzler invited Farish to become music director, and with a team of volunteers were able to breathe new life into the event.

But there is a price to support a festival that continues to try to reach new heights. Ticket prices have gone up this year, a move necessary organizers say to obtain higher caliber performers.

Farish knows increasing ticket prices could be risky, but it’s given him the opportunity to approach musicians who wouldn’t otherwise make the trip.

“We’re taking a chance spending more money,” he said. “World-class artists won’t come to just any festival. You have to have that in place.”

When asked what takes to orchestrate a festival this size, Hetzler looks across the dining room of the Drift Inn as her staff prepares for the lunch rush. “It’s a lot of work,” she says. “It’s like an octopus, many arms to it.”

She smiles at Farish, “Thank God you came on Stephen, I was drowning.”

“Thank God you let me,” he replies.

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Katherine Ljungqvist is a Lincoln County freelance writer who can be reached at Katherine.Ljungqvist@gmail.com

Performances

Friday

12–1 p.m. Commons stage: Celtic entertainment; Free

1–2 p.m. Little Log Church: Kevin Carr; $20 tickets at the door

2-5 p.m. Commons stage: Cassie & Maggie Macdonald, Gillian Boucher & Bob McNeill, and Beòlach; $25, BrownPaperTickets

5–6 p.m. Little Log Church: Nuala Kennedy & Eamon O’Leary; $20 tickets at the door

6–9 p.m. Commons stage: Lisa Lynne & Aryeh Frankfurter, Nuala Kennedy & Eamon O’Leary, and Vishtèn; $35, BrownPaperTickets

 

Saturday

10 a.m. Commons stage: Morning Irish “Tea” concert; Free

10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Commons stage: Celtic entertainment; Free

Noon to 1 p.m. Little Log Church: Gillian Boucher & Bob McNeill; $20 tickets at the door

1–4 p.m. Commons stage: Nuala Kennedy & Eamon O’Leary, Kevin Carr, and Vishtèn; $35, BrownPaperTickets

4–5 p.m. Commons stage: Celtic entertainment; Free

4–5 p.m. Little Log Church: Cassie & Maggie MacDonald; $20 tickets at the door

5–6 p.m. Little Log Church: Lisa Lynne & Aryeh Frankfurter; $20 tickets at the door

6–9 p.m. Commons Stage: Gillian Boucher & Bob McNeill, Maggie & Cassie MacDonald, and Beòlach; $35, BrownPaperTickets

Sunday

10–11:30 a.m. and 1-2 p.m. Commons stage: Celtic entertainment; Free

2–4 p.m. Commons stage: Maggie & Cassie MacDonald, and Vishtèn; $20 Brown PaperTickets

Workshops & events

Friday

4–5 p.m. Yachats Presbyterian Church: Learn to Play the Harp, a one hour workshop with a provided harp; $20 for Festival attendees/$25 general

4:55–5:25 p.m. Yachats State Park: Piper Kevin Carr provides a free sunset performance.

5–6 p.m. Yachats Commons lobby: Margot and Rich Fetrow perform a free traditional Celtic dulcimer and whistle concert.

5:30–6 p.m. Yachats Commons, Room 3: Free whistle workshop with Rob Gandara, pipe and whistle maker from Celtic Carbony Winds.

Saturday

10–11 a.m. Yachats Presbyterian Church: Learn to Play the Harp, a one hour workshop with a provided harp; $20 for festival attendees/$25 general

11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Yachats Lions Club Hall: Irish Dancing for all ages; $15 per adult/$10 per child. Adults can attend both classes for $24

Noon to 12:30 p.m. Yachats Commons, Room 3: Chanter workshop with Rob Gandara, pipe and whistle maker from Celtic Carbony Winds

2–3 p.m. Yachats Presbyterian Church: Learn to Play the Harp, a one hour workshop with a provided harp; $20 for Festival attendees/$25 general

3–3:30 p.m. Yachats Commons, Room 3: Free whistle workshop with Rob Gandara, pipe and whistle maker from Celtic Carbony Winds.

4:15–5:45 p.m. Drift Inn Restaurant: A single malt whisky tasking event with John Robbins. Advance ticket required, $60

4:55–5:25 p.m. Yachats State Park: Piper Kevin Carr provides a sunset performance.

5–6 p.m. Yachats Commons lobby: Margot and Rich Fetrow perform a traditional Celtic dulcimer and whistle concert.

Sunday

11–11:30 a.m. Yachats Commons, Room 3: Free chanter workshop with Rob Gandara, pipe and whistle maker from Celtic Carbony Winds

11:30 to noon Yachats Commons stage: Ceili (dance) instruction with Elisa Chandler. Free.

Noon to 1 p.m. Yachats Commons: Ceili (dance) with Beòlach performing. Free.

Tickets, including all-day passes to Friday and Saturday shows at the Yachats Commons are being sold through the website BrownPaperTickets. Tickets for performances at the Little Log Church are $20 and sold only at the door.