The Cottars
Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada
Celtic

The Cottars, two young brother-sister pairs from the wind-swept island of Cape Breton, deliver an ingenious, multifaceted take on the traditional music of their native Nova Scotia.  Relatively isolated from outside influences, Cape Breton, which had steady immigration from Scotland between 1793 and the 1840s, remains the heartland of Scottish culture in Canada.

For as long as Ciarán (vocals, keyboards, guitar, flute, and whistle) and Fiona MacGillivray (lead vocals, whistles, harp, and bodhrán), the children of famed Canadian author/composer Allister MacGillivray, can remember, they have been performing for and with the many musical visitors who pass through their family home in Albert Bridge. Musicians Roseanne MacKenzie (fiddle and vocals) and her brother Jimmy (rhythm guitar, bodhrán) were born and raised in the nearby community of Baddeck. The two pairs of young brother and sisters met in 2000 while playing on the same bill at a festival in Iona, Cape Breton. Shortly after they began playing together as the “Cottars,” an old Scots word for cottage-dwelling laborers and a word used later by Nova Scotians for new arrivals or "cots.”

The group quickly received accolades. In 2003, The Cottars waltzed away with Best New Artist honors at the annual East Coast Music Awards (ECMAs) in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 2005, they won another ECMA, this time for Best Roots/Traditional Recording.  The Cottars have now played around the world with many celebrated Celtic musicians, from Cape Breton fiddling star Natalie MacMaster to Ireland’s Altan. Paddy Maloney, founder of The Chieftains, with whom the Cottars have toured, says of the group, "The Cottars have the same kind of drive and energy The Chieftains had when we were first starting out".With their combination of incredible musicianship, amazing voices and wonderful dancing, what a future they have ahead of them!"

Links

http://wwuh.org/program/articles/julaug05/celtic.htm

http://www.jproductions.com/cottars.html

http://www.rambles.net/cottars_madecb02.html

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