Unique festival partnership gives emerging and established Irish artists a new international platform

www.sligolive.ie

Celtic Connections in Scotland (the largest winter festival in Europe hosting over 2,100 musicians, 300 events, 20 venues over 18 days) hosts a Sligo Live night on Wednesday, 25th January 2012 at St. Andrews In The Square. The Sligo Live showcase, which is now an annual and unique event at Celtic Connections, is part of a partnership between the two festivals where the Scottish festival and the Irish event promote each other in their respective markets.

Marking the second year of Celtic Connections’ partnership with the Sligo Live Festival is another triple bill curated from Ireland’s traditional heartland – and one of its most exciting contemporary hotbeds - reuniting the fabled partnership of pioneering accordionist Máirtin O’Connor with guitarist, singer and fiddler Seamie O’Dowd, as heard on O’Connor’s 2005 album “The Road West”.  Aptly-named indie-popsters The Gorgeous Colours channel blues, folk, jazz, soul rock, indie and electronic influences into “a perfect package” of feelgood, danceable and all-round gorgeous sounds” (State.ie). While O’Connor himself has hailed young Sligo natives and Danny Kyle Award winners The JPTrio as “the new cutting edge of fused traditional music”.

Sligo Live is one of the most exciting festivals to emerge in recent times on the international calendar of events.

In a quirky coincidence, the two festival artistic directors are both accordion players with top international acts; Shane Mitchell from the traditional music group Dervish is the Artistic Director of Sligo Live, and Donald Shaw who performs with Scotland’s top traditional act Capercaillie, is Artistic Director of Celtic Connections.

Celtic Connections Artistic Director Donald Shaw said; “We are delighted with our successful partnership with Sligo Live in Ireland. The artistic vision and ethos of Sligo Live is similar to that of Celtic Connections, and we believe this partnership will raise the profile of Sligo Live in Scotland whilst increasing the size of Irish audiences to Celtic Connections, Europe’s largest festival of its type”.

Sligo Live Producer, Rory O’Connor added, “This is a very exciting venture for Sligo Live. The Scottish strand of our 2011 programme, made possible by Creative Scotland, was a huge success; really adding to the vibrancy of Sligo Live in 2011 and introduced a raft of superb Scottish acts to a new audience.

Celtic Connections takes place in Glasgow from 19th January to 5th February 2012, for full festival details see; www.celticconnections.com. Sligo Live will take place over the Irish October bank holiday weekend from 24th until 29th October 2012. Full details and announcements soon see www.sligolive.ie   A limited number of early bird weekend tickets for all Sligo Live shows at last year’s price of €95 are available from www.sligolive.ie and the Hawk’s Well Theatre (phone 00 353 71 916 1526). Special hotel special offers are also available.

Visitors have the opportunity to combine the Festival’s music and craic with many of the year round activities Sligo has to offer; Ireland’s best Surfing beaches, Hill and Forest walks, Seaweed baths, Boating, Fishing, Sailing, Camping, Golf, Music Archives, and an array of activities to tantalise young minds. Knock Ireland West Airport has a convenient network of flights from Edinburgh, Stansted, Liverpool, Manchester, Luton, Bristol, East Midlands, Gatwick and Birmingham. Ireland West is only 45 minutes from Sligo.

For further information contact:
Carmody Smith PR
aine@carmodysmithpr.com/ niamh@carmodysmithpr.com
Tel: 01 207 0496 / Mob: 086 1741 882
www.sligolive.ie