Celtic Connections: Big break time for the cream of this year's crop

Published on Friday 22 January 2010 18:10

ONE of Celtic Connections' less public success stories over the last decade has been its hosting of what's now Scotland's biggest international music industry event, aimed at promoting our homegrown musical talent around the world and throughout the year.

• Art-rock six piece The Phantom Band play at Chemikal Underground's birthday bash next Sunday. Picture: Complimentary

Next weekend, the 11th Showcase Scotland sees more than 60 Scottish acts – from septuagenarian bothy balladeers to current art-rock darlings The Phantom Band – lined up over the festival's final four days, with around 200 promoters, agents, festival organisers and record-label representatives, from 18 countries, in attendance.

Thanks to Celtic Connections taking place when many festivals and venues are still booking for later in the year, the results for performers are often direct and immediate. In 2008 and 2009 respectively, for instance, Orcadian eight-piece The Chair and instrumental supergroup The Treacherous Orchestra appeared at the prestigious Cambridge Folk Festival, after its director ran across them back in January.

The spin-offs frequently continue longer-term, too, as with the young traditional quartet Breabach, whose 2008 Showcase gig landed them a date at the following year's Edmonton Folk Festival, leading in turn to bookings for Vancouver and Winnipeg – these being Canada's top festival triumvirate – in 2011.

"I'll often see up-and-coming acts who I'll then keep an eye on and maybe book two years later," says the leading UK agent and longtime Showcase delegate Alan Bearman, who's also involved in programming several major English festivals.

"I saw Malinky there, for instance, just after their first album, and I've followed their career closely ever since: I've booked the band a good many times, and I now represent Karine Polwart, their original singer. Showcase is great for getting an early sight of artists who are going to be much bigger down the line."

Jointly sponsored by Celtic Connections, the Scottish Arts Council and the British Council, Showcase Scotland is unique among such expo-type events in that it's only a small, albeit important, component of a much larger entity, namely Celtic Connections itself. Before the wider interests of delegates or musicians are even considered, the selected acts have to be good enough for the festival's paying audience, which firmly underpins the line-up's quality control.

According to Celtic Connections' artistic director, Donald Shaw, Showcase nowadays also pays dividends back to the punters, and not just by helping make our indigenous industry more sustainable. "Given how the festival's broadened its musical scope to become so multi-genre and multicultural, I think it's more important than ever to have this weekend focusing particularly on Scottish artists," he says.

"It's not that there aren't plenty of Scots performing elsewhere on the bill, but the Showcase platform gives this element an extra shout and highlights the fact that home-grown talent is still very much the backbone of the event."

Witnessing performances in a real-life festival setting, too, including the paying audience's response, gives Showcase delegates a much more accurate impression of what a band or artist does, and how well they do it, than the handful of often decidedly un-festive public gigs tacked on to most industry gatherings.

"Even though I'm only there for four days, because it's part of a three-week festival I can cover a lot of ground in that time," affirms Cambridge Folk Festival director Eddie Barcan.

"As well as seeing the Scottish acts involved, and being able to gauge which ones would work in my line-up, I get to hear directly about other acts I might be interested in, who've played earlier on in the programme, from people I know and trust who were at those gigs, so that's incredibly useful, too."

The fact that Showcase Scotland is now consistently over-subscribed reflects how widely these feelings are shared among the international folk world's movers and shakers. "Because we can't encroach too much on Celtic Connections' main audience, our maximum is 200 delegates," explains Lisa Whytock, director of Active Events, the leading Glasgow agency that's produced Showcase Scotland since 2002.

"Nowadays we also have a limit of two delegates per organisation, which maximises the number of bodies represented – but we still have a waiting list of more wanting to come."

Another feature since 2005 has been the involvement of an international partner – this year it's Norway, with Quebec, Denmark and Sweden among those previously on board, and Nova Scotia lined up for 2011.

The partners essentially buy in for the chance to present five or six of their own acts among the Showcase Scotland line-up, and again, the mutual benefits extend well beyond the performances themselves.

"As well as being such a hub for the whole commercial folk sector, Showcase is also bringing about cultural contacts and exchange at a very formal, political and governmental level," says Ian Smith, head of music at the Scottish Arts Council.

"The Norwegian Embassy's head of cultural affairs is coming this year, and several culture ministers have attended in the past – and having those two dimensions meet at the same event has just proved invaluable in opening doors overseas for our artists."

&#149 Showcase Scotland kicks off on Thursday with a gig at the ABC featuring Fred Morrison, Old Blind Dogs, Alyth and The Shee. www.celticconnections.com