Celtic Connections

For just over a fortnight in the depths of January, more than 300 concerts spread out across the city, from grand seated halls to scuffed grassroots rooms. The programming reaches well beyond Scottish and Irish traditional music, taking in Americana, jazz, blues, world music and acoustic songwriting, often with one-off collaborations and commissions that exist nowhere else. Because everything happens indoors in established venues, the experience has more in common with a citywide concert season than a field festival, and audiences move between performances by foot, bus and subway. Long-running fixtures such as the Transatlantic Sessions and the late-running Festival Club give it a recognisable rhythm, while an education programme brings thousands of schoolchildren to free morning concerts. It tends to suit listeners who value attentive, seated performances and discovering new artists over headline spectacle.