Release date: Nov. 30, 2004
Contact: Deb Hammacher, Associate Director, University Media Relations,
at 404-727-0644 or deb.hammacher@emory.edu

Emory Hosts 12th Annual Celtic Christmas Concert

WHAT: 12th Annual Atlanta Celtic Christmas Concert

WHO: Emory Dance Company, Emory Early Music Ensemble, Irish stepdancers Katie Baughman and Erin Connelly, Scottish Highland dancer Bronwen Halstead-Nussloch, Nonesuch, Celtic harper Kelly Stewart, the Buddy O'Reilly Band and Irish tenor James Flannery.

WHEN: 8 p.m. Dec. 11 and 12

WHERE: Schwartz Center for Performing Arts, 1700 N. Decatur Rd., Emory.

COST: $20 general admission; $16 discount groups; $8 children and all students. For tickets, call 404-727-5050. For information, call 404-727-6180.

A holiday favorite for the past 11 years, the Atlanta Celtic Christmas Concert returns to Emory this year with a host of new and returning performers promising the "reverend yet rollicking" experience audiences have come to expect. The concert, this year on Dec. 11 and 12 at 8 p.m. in the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts, features traditional musicians, singers and dancers from as far away as Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, and Dublin, Ireland, as well as the premiere of a setting of "The Magi" by W. B. Yeats composed by Emory's Steve Everett.

In addition to the regular lineup of popular regional performers, the concert also features for the first time a selection of medieval carols from Brittany, France, interpreted by the Emory Early Music Ensemble and Chorus. Regularly chosen as one of the "Best Bets" of the Atlanta holiday season, the event is popular with audiences of all ages.

Produced by the W.B. Yeats Foundation under the direction of James Flannery, Winship Professor of the Arts and Humanities at Emory, the concert has a double focus. The program portrays the Christmas traditions of the Celtic lands--many of them dating back to medieval times--through music, dance, poetry, song and story. The concert also shows how those traditions have had a direct influence on the ways in which many Southerners, particularly those in the Appalachian region, continue to celebrate Christmas, says Flannery.

Everett's setting of Yeats' "The Magi" highlights the concert this year. The piece features choreography by Emory's Lori Teague that will be performed by the Emory Dance Company.

Other performers include harper Kelly Stewart, Irish stepdancers Katie Baughman and Erin Connelly, and Scottish Highland dancer Bronwen Halstead-Nussloch. Nonesuch, a group of Georgia folk musicians who perform old-time Southern gospel songs in close harmony, Irish tenor James Flannery and the Buddy O'Reilly Band--featuring singer Lisa Edwards--also return this year.

The participation of several Emory artists and ensembles in the concert this year is an outgrowth of the university's long commitment to honoring the distinctive Celtic heritage of the American South. Because of sustained student and faculty interest, the university recently launched an Irish studies program. Emory also houses a world-class collection of Irish literary manuscripts and is a partner in the Bobby Jones Scholarship exchange program with the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

The addition this year of artists from Cape Breton Island is fitting since the island in Nova Scotia was settled by immigrants from the Scottish Highlands driven from their homes by the infamous Clearances of the early 18th century. Three centuries later, the fiddle and dance traditions of the Highlands are kept alive in Cape Breton. In Ireland, as in Cape Breton and other parts of the far-flung Celtic community, folk traditions are directly passed on, parents to children, among families gathered around the hearth. Such traditions are represented in this year's Atlanta Celtic Christmas program--a living testimony to the continuity and distinctive qualities of the Celtic culture.

Noted for their layering of imagery drawn from druidic nature worship, Celtic mythology and the Gospels, the early Christian liturgical and secular works being performed at the Atlanta Celtic Christmas Concert are among the most beautiful in the Western tradition, says Flannery. "Scottish pipes, old time fiddlers, the shimmering strings of a Welsh harp, solo performers and ensembles of all sorts add to the holiday mix this season at Emory," he says.

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