Introducing…
Our first ever mini east-coast Folk Festival
Merry Time’s first ever (mini) folk fest is a two day event with workshops & concerts featuring folk & roots musicians from Canada the US & Scotland.
…Featuring musical friends from here and there.
LEA KIRSTEIN
Lea Kirstein is a multi-instrumentalist (fiddle / violin, viola, and cello), educator, and concert presenter / instigator based in Toronto, Ontario. She grew up in Victoria, BC, immersed in many different traditional and contemporary fiddle styles, studying with Daniel Lapp, and Oliver Schroer while in the national youth fiddle project, the Twisted String, and went on to complete a Bachelor’s degree in Music Education. Collaborations with other musicians have led her on tours across Canada and the US with: Medusa, iskwē, Citizen Jane, Roaring Timber, the Folk Arts Quartet, and Balfolk Toronto. She has recorded with JUNO nominees Teresa Doyle, Leif Vollebekk, and with Nuala Kennedy, and currently freelances in the Toronto music scene with new classical, jazz, pop, singer-songwriter, and folk music groups, including Medusa, Polky, and Erik Bleich.
Instruments: Fiddle / violin, viola, and cello
Origin: Victoria, BC, Canada
MAEVE GILCHRIST
Described by one critic as “a phenomenal harp player who can make her instrument ring with unparalleled purity”, Maeve Gilchrist has taken the Celtic (lever) harp to new levels of performance and visibility. Born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland, and currently based in Kingston, New York, Maeve‘s innovative approach to her instrument stretches its harmonic limits and improvisational possibilities. She is as at home as a soloist with an internationally renowned orchestra as she is playing with a traditional Irish folk group or using electronic augmentation in a more contemporary, improvisatory setting. Maeve has released five albums to date, including her most recent recording, The Harpweaver which was hailed by the Irish times in its five-star review as “Buoyant, sprightly and utterly beguiling....a snapshot of a musician at the top of her game.
Instrument: Harp
Origin: Edinburgh, Scotland via NY
MAIRI CHAIMBEUL
Màiri Chaimbeul is a Juno-nominated harp player and composer from the Isle of Skye in Scotland. a native Gaelic speaker, Màiri is known for her versatile sound, rooted in language and tradition, combined with a distinctive improvising voice and expressive rhythmic approach. Currently based in Halifax NS, after almost a decade in Boston Ma, Màiri tours regularly throughout North America, the UK, and Europe. Màiri can currently be heard regularly in duo with leading US/Scottish fiddler Jenna Moynihan, cfma-winning prog-trad group Aerialists, and the new improvised-music group Quilting. She is featured in Series 2 of Julie Fowlis and Muireann Nicamhlaoibh’s BBC ALBA/TG4 television show, Port. She has collaborated, recorded and performed with a wide-range of artists including Darol Anger, Eleanor Buckland (Lula Wiles), Liz Carroll, Rose Cousins, and Bruce Molsky.
Instruments: Harp
Origin: Isle of Skye, Scotland
COLIN COTTER
Colin Cotter picked up the fiddle at the age of 4, beginning a life-long journey building upon several generations of his family’s intimate relationship with traditional Finnish music. Over time, musical influences from Scotland to Quebec to New York City to West Africa crept in, rendering him a genre-defying folky, unencumbered by traditional convention yet warmly familiar with it. A self-taught guitarist, he has developed a unique accompaniment style that, in tandem with his hard-hitting, poignant songwriting, bridges the gaps between American and Celtic folk music and rock.
Instruments: Guitar / Fiddle
Origin: San Francisco, CA
ADRIANNA CICCONE
Raised in the Ottawa Valley fiddle tradition and greatly inspired by Québécois fiddling, Adrianna Ciccone cut her teeth at fiddle camps across Ontario and Canada. A graduate of Berklee College of Music in Boston, Adrianna took advantage of her time there to expand her dance fiddling to new traditions. Adrianna crosses back and forth across the continent with ease, showcasing Scottish reels from Cape Breton, crooked French-Canadian brandys from Québec, the rollicking rhythms of Ottawa Valley stepdancing tunes, all the way down to Southern Appalachian stringband tunes; she even incorporates Irish and Métis influences. This is dance music through and through. Produced by Appalachian fiddle master Bruce Molsky, The Back of Winter won Instrumental Artist of the Year at the 2015 Canadian Folk Music Awards.
Instrument: Fiddle
Origin: Timmins, ON, Canada
2023 Mini Folk Fest
Concerts & Workshops at Merry Time Music Co. 5558 Sullivan Street, Halifax NS
Accessibility: Regrettably, accessing our loft is restricted to using stairs and is therefore not accessible for those who require a mobility aid. For those with allergies we also have a (very small, cute, but still allergenic) dog.