News 2008

[Joe]

Some brand-new promotional photos of The Cottars!

[donna]

Several days ago I asked the question about how do you qualify for a sub-board in other music. I was told that there were no more sub-boards being created for other music. I think I am not the only new member to HWI that go to this site because we like Hayley's music, and we are also singers....but we are singers trying to find out how to make it in the business. And now the "Cottars" have 2 sub-boards....just seems unfair somehow. I wanted to let you know how I feel . It seems if you are a long-time member on this forum you get alot more privilges.
Donna- a new member

[roger]

Hi Donna,

Neither the Cottars nor any other artist (apart from Hayley) has more than one sub-board on this forum. I don't see how being a long-term member has given them more privileges as none of them have ever registered.

I have answered the remainder of your question in a new thread in Other Music HERE

Roger

[postscript]

Edit: I have moved this post to New threads for new singers.

Richard

[Nordly]

I can barely recognise Claire in the top pic, but I like it anyway!

[Joe]

Where to start !!

1. Announcing the creation of The Cottars' New Official site: www.thecottars.ca/index.htm

2. A new Myspace site created last Friday. This contains several new full-length recordings.

3. Pre-production for a new CD is in full swing.

Looking good

Joe

I fixed the link to the Cottars' new website.
Richard

[Nordly]

I was in the first 100 to visit the myspace! Yay!

Can't wait to hear the CD when it comes out!

[Joe]

Hi all,

I was informed today that my forum is now listed on The Cottars' new Official website.

It is atop their miscellanous link page... www.thecottars.ca/links.htm


Joe

[Joe]

The Cottars have announced that they will accompany The Chieftains on their tour of western Canada.

July 16 & 17...Calgary, Alberta...Knox United Church...8 PM
July 18...Victoria, BC...Royal Theatre...8 PM
July 19...Surrey, BC...Holland Park...Fusion Festival...8 PM

[Joe]

The Cottars' next CD to include cover of Gordon Lightfoot's "Your Love's Return"; other details in boldface

Portions of a news article in the Cape Breton Post, July 25

The Cottars are coming to the Cape
Popular Celtic group to perform Saturday at St Matthew Wesley United Church

LAURA JEAN GRANT
The Cape Breton Post

NORTH SYDNEY — The Cottars have sandwiched a Cape Breton show in between summer tours of western Canada, the United States and Ontario.

The renowned Celtic group will perform Saturday night at St. Matthew Wesley United Church in North Sydney at 7 p.m. as part of North Sydney’s Bartown celebrations. And the four members of The Cottars — Fiona MacGillivray, Ciarán MacGillivray, Claire Pettit and Bruce Timmons — are looking forward to performing in Cape Breton, after just coming off a mini-tour of Alberta and B.C. earlier this month with the Chieftains.

“There’s definitely a vibe from the hometown crowd,” said Fiona, noting island audiences are familiar with many of their tunes and often tap their feet and clap to the music.

Since parting ways with fellow original Cottars members Jimmy and Roseanne MacKenzie in 2006, Ciarán and Fiona have teamed up with Claire Pettit and Bruce Timmons for a new-look, new-feel group, that is set to release its first album as a foursome later this year.

“We don’t yet have a release date but the music is finished and it’s kinda going through the mastering and production right now and it should be out soon and we’re excited to have people listen and see what they think. We had a lot of fun recording it,” said Ciarán. “The main thing is we were trying to establish all sorts of new aspects of what this group can do and on this record in particular one important thing is that Fiona has a couple of original songs on it which is something we hadn’t done before. But we had a lot of fun recording those and hopefully there will be more of them in the future.”

Fiona said she’s thrilled to have two of her own original songs included on the upcoming CD.“I wrote a lot when I was much younger and I just never did anything with them and then I sort of gave it up and I missed it such a great deal,” she recalled. “To have some songs recorded on this last CD was a great way to inspire myself to get back to it. I find (songwriting) to be very fulfilling.”

Another highlight of the new album, which includes a mix of instrumentals and vocals, is the Gordon Lightfoot tune, Your Love’s Return (Song for Stephen Foster).

“I’ve been a Lightfoot fan for years and we just found the perfect song that hadn’t been as well known as some of his other works and did an arrangement of it and I personally was very excited to try that because I was such a great follower of his,” said Ciarán.

The MacGillivray siblings both sing and stepdance, and play a wide range of instruments including the piano, guitar, tin whistle, Irish bouzouki, Irish flute, bodhrán, and Celtic harp. Pettit, the youngest member of the band, is a talented instrumentalist, singer, composer and dancer, and Timmons, the Cottars’ lead guitarist, is one of the most respected accompanists in the Maritimes having toured or recorded with renowned East Coast groups like The Men Of The Deeps and The Rankin Family.

see the article here...
www.capebretonpost.com/index.cfm?sid=156107&sc=147

[Joe]

The Cottars' turn at the Fusion Festival at Holland Park, Surrey (British Columbia, Canada), July 19th.

youtube.com/watch?v=VVIWdXTUDc0

I am told that The Chieftains joined the group shortly afterwards.

Enjoy, Joe

[Joe]

From yesterday's The Chronicle-Herald newspaper. Info on tonight's concert plus many items of interest...

The Cottars bring mature sound to Cohn

By ANDREA NEMETZ Entertainment Reporter
Sat. Oct 25 - 7:08 AM

Fiona MacGillivray will be singing her own song in public for the first time when The Cottars perform at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium in Halifax on Sunday at 7:30 p.m.

"It’s about love," she says, from her home in Mira, outside of Sydney, "but then all songwriting is about love to some degree. "But I kept it to myself. Recently I’ve decided it’s time to get it out on stage, however terrifying that is."

Fiona is looking forward to performing a Mark Knopfler song entitled Fare Thee Well Northumberland. "I’ve been listening a lot to Ralph Stanley and it will be fun to incorporate some bluegrass into it."

The 19-year-old has also written two songs that will appear on an upcoming Cottars album that was recorded at Cape Breton’s Lakewind Sound and is now in the mastering process. The album, to be released on Rounder Records in the U.S. and available in Canada through Universal, is slated for release after Christmas, says MacGillivray.

It’s the first Cottars CD featuring the group’s newest members, fiddler Claire Pettit and guitarist Bruce Timmons. They replaced original members Roseanne and Jimmy MacKenzie.

"They’ve been with us for two-and-a-half, almost three years," says Fiona’s brother Ciaran MacGillivray, who will turn 21 in December. "We don’t say new anymore, but some people in Halifax may not have heard them."

Claire, 18, of Orange County, N.Y., also spends time in Lake Ainslie and she attended the Gaelic College in St. Ann’s, as did the MacGillivrays.

Pettit is a classically trained violist now studying at the University of Massachusetts, and often it’s difficult for classical musicians to transition to Celtic music as so little is taught through sheet music, but passed down through generations, Fiona says.

Timmons, originally from Big Bras d’Or and now based in Dartmouth, is well-known around Cape Breton as a "guitar monster," says Fiona. "He’s a phenomenal musician."

Ciaran plays piano, but is also very skilled at guitar, accordion, tin whistle, wooden flute, Bodhran and bouzouki, says Fiona.

Ciaran and Timmons were tapped by The Chieftains’ Paddy Moloney to perform on piano and guitar respectively for a series of Chieftains’ concerts this summer. The Cottars also opened for the legendary Irish group.

Read the entire story at this link... thechronicleherald.ca/ArtsLife/1086615.html

[Joe]

The Cottars will be the special guests of host Natalie MacMaster for the Holiday Festival on Ice - A Celtic Christmas.

The show will be taped on December 5th at 7 PM at the Halifax Metro Centre, and will be later broadcast as a 90-minute show on the CBC on December 17th.

The lineup of skaters includes --

Jeff Buttle.... (2008 World Champion)
Sasha Cohen.... (USA 2006 Olympic silver medalist)
Kurt Browning.... (four-time world champion)
Shawn Sawyer.... (3-time Canadian national bronze medalist)
Steven Cousins.... (eight-time British national champion)
Jennifer Robinson.... (six-time Canadian national champion)
Jamie Salé & David Pelletier.... (2002 Olympic gold medalists)
Marie-France Dubreuil & Patrice Lauzon.... (2-time world silver medalists)

Highlights will include two full cast performances and two individual performances by each skater or duo.

The Cottars will release their 4th CD in January, and are planning tours in western Canada and the USA shortly after.

--Musical director Allister seemed to hint to a possible concert near me!

Joe

[Joe]

Nov 1, 2008 1:03:45 GMT Joe said:

The Cottars will be the special guests of host Natalie MacMaster for the Holiday Festival on Ice - A Celtic Christmas.

[/size]

The show will be taped on December 5th at 7 PM at the Halifax Metro Centre, and will be later broadcast as a 90-minute show on the CBC on December 17th.[/quote]

Wow! Read all about it from the on-line version of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald.

MacMaster, Cottars, world-class skaters capture season’s grace and beauty

By ANDREA NEMETZ Entertainment Reporter | Ice Show Review

Sat. Dec 6 - 8:21 AM

Before rocking Halifax Metro Centre to the sounds of Foreigner’s highly appropriate hit Cold As Ice, Shawn Sawyer urged the crowd not to be cold as ice this Christmas.

The Edmunston, N.B., skater needn’t have worried.

The 7,000 fans assembled Friday for Holiday Festival on Ice couldn’t have given the 10 world-class skaters — plus musical guests The Cottars and Natalie MacMaster — a warmer reception, rising to their feet for standing ovations eight times during the two-hour show.

Opening with Season of Holly and Ivy, ECMA-winning group The Cottars set the tone for the evening with a theme of A Celtic Christmas, as Marie-France Dubreuil, Jennifer Robinson and Jamie Sale skated out in shimmering silver dresses, elegantly twisting glittery tartan scarves.

And in Peace Carol, as the Cottars’ music sent shivers down the spine, the flexible Sawyer, who is attempting to qualify for his second Olympic berth, elicited gasps with a back flip. He repeated the move in Cold As Ice, which also featured a gravity defying version of a spread eagle.

[/size][/quote]

I hope to get The Cottars' set list soon!

For the complete article... visit
thechronicleherald.ca/ArtsLife/1094444.html

[Joe]

Hi all,

I did get the set list from last Friday's "Holiday Festival on Ice" taping.

The Cottars performed two songs "The Season of Holly & Ivy" and their recent hit "Peace Carol"

As well as live performances from Natalie MacMaster and The Cottars, the use of recorded music was also selected by some of the ice skaters.

I learned that Canadian national champion Jennifer Robinson skated to "The Last Rose of Summer" by Celtic Woman ! I'm not certain if this was one of Hayley's recordings...good chance though.

This show will later air on CBC televison across Canada on December 17 at 8 PM.