Rob Skeet and Clay Pigeon are a whirlwind act that you are sure not to forget.

Rob Skeet has been a one-man musical tour de force for over 30 years.

Featuring a wide variety of music styles including: Celtic Rock, Country, Pop, Sing-along, and some stuff that’s just plain silly!

Rob uses his boundless energy and collection of silly wigs and hats to create a performance filled with fun and merriment.

Rob Skeet and Clay Pigeon is a high energy duo featuring Rob’s usual shenanigans teamed up with smokin’ fiddler, Calgary-renowned street performer and special event fiddler, Karen Sim.

Martin is no stranger to the stage of Celtic Folk. He is a raconteur who weaves together tales and stories to bewitch and amuse.

Inisheer are an Irish/Celtic informed band which features traditional music, ballades, Down East tunes and step dancing. Named after the smallest of the Aran Islands located off the coast of County Galway, Inisheer seeks to spread a little joy and to embody the haunting beauty and mystery of the Celtic artistic tradition and the island for which it is named. Members of the group include fiddles, Paddy Byrne, Doug Wagner; guitar, Greg Black; button accordion, Anne Cowman; flute, Karen Pollock; keyboard, Tara O’Sullivan; Bodhran, Bobby Skillen. If you look closely, you’ll some of the former Celtic Rabbits.

On Irish Street are Emilie Kirwan, Derick Perry and Eileen Perry-Milligan

Together they have played at Water Valley, the Rocky Mountain Folk Club, Celtic Folk, formal functions at the Irish Centre and in a weekly session at The Oaktree pub in Calgary.

Emilie Kirwan is from Ballynacally, a village outside Ennis in Co. Clare. She attended the University of Limerick and has a Masters in Traditional Irish music performance. Martin Hayes and Gerry O’Connor were just two of her teachers in the Masters program.

Derick Perry is a singer/guitarist from Belfast, Co. Antrim. He has played with various bands and also performed solo at Celtic Folk, the Rocky Mountain Folk Club and Water Valley.

Eileen Perry-Milligan is also from Belfast, Co. Antrim and has played Bodhran with groups who have performed at Celtic Folk and Water Valley and at the Rocky Mountain Folk Club as a duo with Derick. Her bodhran was built by Dave Settles.

Magnolia Buckskin are Kathy Cook, Natasha Platt, Emily Triggs and Corry Ulan

They say she can bend strings faster than the Sundance Kid can pull his gun! Calgary’s own Kathy Cook is a multi-instrumentalist playing mandolin and guitar. Her sultry vocals and song writing abilities have won her praise with the James Keelaghan trio, Jenny Allen, Ruth Purves-Smith, Tim Williams, Ralph Boyd-Johnson, Rose Hip, and Wilf Carter.

Natasha Platt can play anything she puts her mind to including piano, accordion, guitar and banjo. She’s been writing music since she was a teenager and performing solo for many years as well as with bands: Bufflehead, the Collective and The Bitumont Players. She is known for her powerful vocals, unforgettable melodies and her ability to engage an audience.

Emily Triggs had an early start in her music career performing for family gatherings since she was small enough to fit inside a guitar case! This bilingual beauty honed her natural talent in Hemmingford, Quebec before heading west and joining Calgary bands, The House Doctors and the Fallen Angel band. Her honest, warm, rich voice will win you over.

Corry Ulan has been with the ladies since March of 2009, she brings her banjo, guitar and bass playing abilities into the mix. As a Calgary resident for 10 years, Corry has played in local bands, Nothing but Trouble, Slow Talking Walter, Ink, New Street, and the Nancy Laberge band. Her quirky, often humorous songs add a new

Highwood Highland Dancers, High River’s school of Highland Dance, have been kicking up their heels in the Foothills since 1993 and have made their mark on the Highland community. Dancers from the ages of 4 and up are welcome to enjoy the benefits of Highland dance. Our school enjoys a balance of competitive and recreational dancers, and prides itself on its strong sense of community. Dancers have performed publicly at such events as the World Police and Fire Games, the High River and Foothills Highland Games, Mason’s Cornerstone Lodge and other Robbie Burns celebrations, and for such dignitaries as Prime Minister Joe Clark and Premier Alison Redford. Dancers also have the benefit of yearly testing with the SDTA (Scottish Dance Teachers Alliance). Highwood Highland Dancers are planning on a tour of Scotland in the summer of 2015 and have a number of fundraising activities and events planned for the coming year, including a New Year’s Eve Ceilidh in High River.

The stress of this school is to encourage a life-long love of dance, as well as a strong sense of respect for self and others. Classes run September through May for recreational dancers and September through June for competitive dancers. For more information about the group you can find them on Facebook and at their website www.highwoodhighlanddancers.com

Walk the Dog plays a somewhat eclectic mix of Celtic music, and also some small amounts of “other stuff”. While primarily instrumental, they can, on occasion, be coaxed to sing a tune.

Forged from the fire of Gypsy Grass, Walk the Dog is Barbara Francis on fiddle, Andreas Wissmann on mandolin and guitar, Wayne Kelly on guitar and vocals, Bryan Francis on drum and bass and Robert Newton on flute and whistle.

Trained in a wide variety of musical backgrounds from classical to bluegrass, this band of friends comes together to rehearse, laugh, and share the music that they love.

Rua is Gaelic for red, red as in the flame of Roxanne Young’s hair, red as in the fire that dances in her eyes as she plays the fiddle, red as in the flames fanned by the fantastic dervish-like playing of David Morrissey on guitar and banjo/bouzouki.

Roxanne is one of only 14 musicians in the world to be honoured on the renowned Berklee College of Music’s stringed instrument Hall of Fame. She has worked with Aerosmith, Disney, Cirque de Soleil, Alanis Morissette and many more. She has performed all over the world and has graced the stage of Carnegie Hall with her breathtaking musical genius. She is the founder of the Calgary Contemporary School of music and also one of the founders and creative forces behind the international touring sensation Barrage.

David Morrissey is an incredibly gifted guitarist, his passionate playing is without equal in Calgary and leaves audiences speechless at both his speed and precision. Together David and Roxanne offer up the very best in Irish traditional music. You are in for a real treat!

If you visit the Irish Centre on a Wednesday evening, you will hear a chorus of fine voices wafting up from downstairs, singing and enjoying an evening of camaraderie and fun. Getting ICS Choir members out for practice is never a problem, as it is an evening of getting friends together – so much so that music almost plays “second fiddle” to the visiting! That being said, the ICS Choir has been making fine music in various venues around Calgary for about 10 years. Their repertoire centers mainly around Irish music, however this has not prevented them from occasionally straying from the Celtic path into some light musical parodies and fun songs! Joe Massey conducts and Anne Cowman arranges the music and accompanies on piano.

I grew up listening to Scottish and English traditional music, got my first record of Breton music at 13, and it’s been all downhill since then. Started flute when I was 11, guitar and bass soon followed. Began with the Northumbrian pipes about 20 years ago.

Ironically, it was at the Northumbrian Pipers gatherings in North Hero, Vermont, that I got my first close up experience with hurdy-gurdies and traditional French music. I acquired my first hurdy-gurdy a few years later, in 2003.

The Border, or Lowland Bagpipe dates back to the late 1600/early 1700’s. Many towns in the border and lowland regions of Scotland had a town piper who played in the morning and for curfew in the evening. The last known town piper died in the early 1800’s and the tradition lost with the militarization of the Big Pipes. The instrument underwent a small revival in the 1920’s when the Northumbrian pipers society had an Edinborough pipemaker make some sets for boy scout troops. In the 1970/80’s a serious revival was undertaken by a few Scottish and Northumbrian players and makers with the main stumbling block being a workable reed. Once this was developed, there has been no looking back (unfortunately, some would say).

The Hurdy-gurdy almost died out in the 1800’s but was kept alive in the villages of central France, as such, the bulk of the traditional repertoire is French dance music although, there is Spanish, Belgian, Italian music, and