James Allan

Celtic Music Festival returns to Kinnear’s Mills this weekend

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

On the South Shore, Irish tunes aren’t just for St. Patrick’s Day weekend, and Québécois reels and sets carrés aren’t just for le temps des Fêtes. Lovers of Irish, Scottish, Québécois and Acadian traditional music and dance will be able to get their fill at the Kinnear’s Mills Celtic Music Festival, which runs from July 17-20 in and around Sainte- Catherine-Labouré Church in Kinnear’s Mills, between Lévis and Thetford Mines.

The festivities will begin on July 17 with an evening variety show of traditional Québécois music by members of the Thetford Mines chap- ter of the Association québécoise des loisirs folkloriques (AQLF), under the festival tent. The next day, La Famille Leblanc, from Bathurst, N.B., will perform under the tent at 7 p.m. Singers and multi-instrumentalists Robin Leblanc and Rebecca Huot and their three teenage daughters, Mélodie, Rosalie and Charlotte Leblanc, are festival regulars and have made a name for themselves in Canada and Europe with their festive blend of Celtic and Acadian music. Their set will be followed by a square dance, called in English by festival organizer James Allan.

Those familiar with Québécois set dancing, Irish ceili dancing or American square dancing won’t be completely unfamiliar with Allan’s dances, but might be thrown off by slightly differ- ent patterns and steps, or by the terminology, called mostly in English with a few French words thrown in, in Allan’s distinctive singsong cadence as he accompanies himself on the piano. “We call the dances ‘traditional dances of down home,’” he explained. “A lot of the time, callers will throw in dances from other regions – they’ll say, ‘Here’s one from the Gaspé’ or ‘Here’s one from Lanaudière’ – but I stick to the ones I learned here. I’ve kept up the tradition of call- ing in English, and there’s a lot of step dancing in these dances, which people get a kick out of.”

On Saturday afternoon, starting at 1 p.m., fiddler Stéphanie Labbé will per- form, followed by Quebec City-based singer and traditional music booster Philippe Guay, Breton trio L’Heure du Bosco and Montmagny-based traditional accordionist Éric Saint-Pierre. The highlight of the evening will be a second square dance, called by Allan at the nearby English School.

On Sunday, an ecumenical church service will be followed by the now-traditional bagpipe concert featuring three pipe bands from around the region, and a closing concert and jig show by Quebec City-based Irish quartet McCool (dancer and percussionist Maude Filion, fiddler Daniel Fréchette, guitarist Dominic Haerinck and multi-instrumentalist François Matte).

Allan, who grew up in a traditional music-loving Scottish family in the region and has been dancing for most of his life, said the festival started more than 30 years ago with a single bagpipe show, and has grown into a celebration of traditional music and dance and of the area’s rich Scottish and Irish history. The events are free, with the exception of the Friday night show featuring La Famille Leblanc ($20 cash at the door) and the Saturday night dance ($15 cash at the door). Regardless of language, age or level of dance experience, Allan said, “Everyone’s welcome.”

The festival is funded by Canadian Heritage, the St. Andrew’s Society of Montreal, Boralex and the town of Kinnear’s Mills.