Back by popular demand, Tomáseen Foley’s A Celtic Christmas returns with all new stories, music and dances that celebrate Irish culture and the giving spirit of the holiday season.
Tomáseen Foley’s A Celtic Christmas is a symbolic recreation on stage of a farmer’s cottage in the west of Ireland where the neighbors gather in the wintry evenings before Christmas. The neighbors bring their instruments, fiddles, whistles, flutes, uilleann pipes, bodhrán, for a night of traditional music, song, dance and storytelling.
The evening is lead by the show’s creator and chief storyteller, Tomáseen Foley, the second youngest of seven children who was born and reared on a small farm in the remote parish of Teampall an Ghleanntáin in the southwest of Ireland – part of the renowned cultural enclave now known as Sliabh Luachra. Foley recalls, “When I was a child it was around the fireplaces of my neighbors’ thatched cottages that I experienced the last remnants of the old communal way of life. The family was the center of the community then, and the community was the center of life itself, the shining axle around which the great wheel of the universe revolved. Stories, music, song and dance were the spokes of that slowly turning wheel.”
One of the special elements of the show – now in it’s fourteenth year on tour -- is having a new guest artist almost every year, a new neighbor. This year, direct from Ballyhaunis, County Mayo, Marianne Knight joins the Celtic Christmas family. Ireland’s Hotpress Magazine says, “Her clear, bright voice and crisp ornamentation make her one of the most exciting vocalist to come along in years.” A virtuoso button accordion player, Knight plays flute, whistles and bodhrán. Additionally, she is a World-Champion-level traditional Irish dancer and was the first Irish-born dancer to win the American nationals. She also competed with great distinction in the British, Canadian, All-Ireland and World championships.
Also new to the show this year is All-Ireland Irish fiddler and World Championship traditional Irish dancer, Katie Linnane. For six successive years (2000–2006) Katie competed with distinction in most of the major dance competitions throughout in Europe and North America, including the All-Ireland-Oireachtas Rince Na hÉireann, British National Championships (2000), All-Scotland Championships (2003) and World Championships (2000-2006). At the age of eight, she took up Irish fiddle, and went on to compete with great distinction both as a soloist and as part of a duet and a trio at the All-Ireland Fleadh Cheoil Na hÉireann 2005.
Music Director William Coulter continues to steer the show’s musical direction. Coulter is an internationally acclaimed master of the steel-string guitar. In 2005, he won a Grammy for his contribution to Pink Guitar, a solo guitar compilation of Henry Mancini tunes. He has been performing and recording traditional Celtic and American folk music for 25 years.
Returning for the fourth year is Uilleann piper Brian Bigley. From the age of eight, Brian studied the traditional, uilleann pipes with Achill Island (Co. Mayo) piper Michael Kilbane -- with whom he also studied flute, whistle and low whistle. He has toured extensively throughout North America, Europe and the UK. He is also a world-class Irish step dancer -- he competed in the World Championships in Glasgow, Scotland in 2002 and in Killarney, Ireland in 2003.
With a world-class ensemble of performers, from both sides of the Atlantic, Tomáseen Foley’s A Celtic Christmas is a wholesome Redding holiday tradition for the entire family.
