The last couple of months we have been hard at work at CeltCast HQ, to not only bring you all the best acoustic folk music we can find, but also to give you – listeners and readers – as much background info as we possibly can. One of the things we were working on was getting a news staff together that would try and collect background information on our favourite style of music; would do interviews with artists; would do festival reports and share all the other folk related news that we could find.
Well with the start of the Corona crisis we stepped up our game a bit and went for it, hence the news items you are seeing on our page the last weeks. So if bands, artists or festivals any have news they want to share, just send us a message and we will happily pick up on it.
This whole idea also means we now regularly wander around the big wide web looking for news that we can write about. Well, I found something. But this is sooo big, this is so cool, this is soo proving the creativity and resilience of the folk scene, I am not gonna tell about it myself. I’m just gonna copy/paste the message as I found it.
Viral Sessions: Chapter 2 – 141 artists, 5 cats and 1 parrot grand Irish session!

United despite the distance, above borders and differences, Viral Sessions is collaborative folk music and dance project, an inclusive, informal gathering of artists from all over the globe. It is an undertaking unique in its plurality, playfulness and a universal goal – to warm people’s hearts, lift their spirits and cheer them up in the troubling moments of isolation caused by the global pandemic.

It all started as a spontaneous initiative to bring performers together for the St. Patrick’s Day 2020. As the first video went viral, we (Vanessa Medecin, Jan Gałczewski and Jakub “Goldfinch” Szczygieł) received an astonishing response from all over the world. Out of this unbelievable enthusiasm and the apparent global need for a genuine human connection we decided to try something really crazy and to coordinate efforts in creating Viral Sessions: Chapter 2, in which every volunteer could participate. A total number of 141 amazing artists, 5 cats and 1 parrot from 6 of Earth’s continents have answered our call, played and danced their hearts out straight from their homes in this set of traditional Irish reels.
What we did here together is brilliant beyond measure! We can’t thank you enough! You are all legends! Names of the tunes: Earl’s Chair / Sporting Paddy / Silver Spear.’

Well I can only say this is a great piece of music. Especially the grand finale is giving me goosebumps all over my body, just by hearing the sheer power of it. As the organizers say themselves: ‘Music and dance make a difference. We make a difference together, united, despite the distance.“
So true and we at CeltCast can’t wait for Chapter 3!

– Cliff