"Airs"

Cape Breton music offers many soulful elements.  Our airs in particular will offer you an experience that has often been described as Holy; they will fill your heart and soul. Some of the oldest of these are Gaelic airs; they’ll pull on your heart strings, bring about that “lump’ in your throat, give you goose bumps and could make a tear drop from your eye.

Have you had a chance to hear “A' Chuthag Ghorm” (the Blue Cuckoo), an old Gaelic song written over a century ago.  Dave MacIsaac performs a very melancholy, modernized version of this air on the electric guitar.  Jerry Holland‘s Boo Baby’s Lullaby, a self-composed air, can be heard on his CD entitled “Fiddler’s Choice”.  As you listen to this incredible piece of art, the tiny hairs on your arms and neck will stand tall.  Margie and Dawn Beaton, two young sisters from Mabou, have recorded “Sir James Baird” on their debut CD “A Taste of Gaelic”.  This version which incorporates the pipes is certain to strike a chord of compassion and reminiscing within you.  Kyle MacNeil of the well-known group “The Barra MacNeils” can draw an air out of his Clay Carmichael fiddle in such a way that the room will silence, time will stop. 

When you do arrive in Cape Breton, be sure to take in a Pastoral Airs concert in one of our community churches.  Or perhaps you’ll have a chance to hear one of our fiddlers play an old Gaelic song at a local concert, and if she doesn’t, just ask her to!