FARMINGTON – New England Celtic Arts will present award winning Canadian Master fiddlers Troy MacGillivray and Andrea Beaton as part of its Western Maine Music Week at The Green Church Concert Series in Mexico on Wednesday, Sept. 9; at Route 27 Arts on Thursday, Sept. 10; and at Old South Church in Farmington on Friday, Sept. 11. Curtain is 7 p.m. at all locations.
Western Maine Music Week, in its third year, will take place in six locations over a 3-day period from Sept. 9-11 in the mountains of western Maine. The popular mini-festival features the small halls and venues that are the trade mark of NECA programming. Over the past couple of years it has proven to be a boon to the local economies as previous events have drawn as much as a 20 percent audience from out of state. A sense of community it at the heart of the festival and top quality sound is added to make the experience the best that it can be.
Fresh off an extended tour of Europe and the UK, Troy and Andrea have teamed up this year to present a well varied program of music and dance. They both excel on fiddle, keyboard, and step-dancing. Expect a very high energy performance. Neither are strangers to the venues of Western Maine and have developed a strong following and have become fan favorites over the last decade.
Multi-instrumentalist MacGillivray from Lanark, Nova Scotia, has been playing music and step dancing since he was a young child and was teaching at Cape Breton’s Gaelic College in St. Ann by the time he was 13. A winner of numerous music awards, he is the recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for outstanding contributions to culture in Canada.
One of Cape Breton’s most established fiddlers, Andrea Beaton comes by her music honestly. Listen to her play, the power of her bow, the drive and swing of her timing, the crispness of her attack. She has made a name for herself in dance halls, concerts, ceilidhs, and festivals throughout North America and the UK.
She’s the youngest of generations of Beaton musicians. Her father, Kinnon, is one of today’s most influential Cape Breton fiddlers, and you can hear some of his timing in Andrea’s playing. Her mother, Betty Beaton, is one of the great piano accompanists of her generation, also contributing to that remarkable Beaton timing.
