Salsa Celtica with Eliza Carthy (383147129)

Salsa Celtica are a

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

group that plays a fusion of

salsa music Salsa music is a style of Latin American music. Because most of the basic musical components predate the labeling of salsa, there have been many controversies regarding its origin. Most songs considered as salsa are primarily based on son montu ...

with traditional Scottish instruments, including elements of

folk Folk or Folks may refer to: Sociology *Nation *People * Folklore ** Folk art ** Folk dance ** Folk hero ** Folk music *** Folk metal *** Folk punk *** Folk rock ** Folk religion * Folk taxonomy Arts, entertainment, and media * Folk Plus or Fol ...

and

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a majo ...

History

Salsa Celtica was formed in 1995 by Scottish jazz and folk musicians. In 1997 they visited

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

to study and absorb the musical culture and influences of the country. Inspired by the trip they released their debut album ''Monstruos y Demonios, (Monsters and Demons)'' that same year. It went on to receive critical and popular acclaim. Since the release of their first album, Salsa Celtica have toured most of Scotland, including the

Hebrides The Hebrides (; gd, Innse Gall, ; non, Suðreyjar, "southern isles") are an archipelago off the west coast of the Scottish mainland. The islands fall into two main groups, based on their proximity to the mainland: the Inner and Outer Hebrid ...

from

Iona Iona (; gd, Ì Chaluim Chille (IPA: �iːˈxaɫ̪ɯimˈçiʎə, sometimes simply ''Ì''; sco, Iona) is a small island in the Inner Hebrides, off the Ross of Mull on the western coast of Scotland. It is mainly known for Iona Abbey, though the ...

Orkney Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) nort ...

, as well as the rest of the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

and

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. They have played at numerous festivals, including

T in the Park T in the Park festival was a major Scottish music festival that was held annually from 1994 to 2016. It was named after its main sponsor, Tennents. The event was held at Strathclyde Park, Lanarkshire, until 1996. It then moved to the disused ...

Celtic Connections The Celtic Connections festival started in 1994 in Glasgow, Scotland, and has since been held every January. Featuring over 300 concerts, ceilidhs, talks, free events, late night sessions and workshops, the festival focuses on the roots of tra ...

, the

Hebridean Celtic Festival The Hebridean Celtic Festival (Scottish Gaelic: Fèis Cheilteach Innse Gall) or HebCelt is an international Scottish music festival, which takes place annually in Stornoway on Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. Headliners to date incl ...

, The Highland Festival,

Glastonbury Festival Glastonbury Festival (formally Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts and known colloquially as Glasto) is a five-day festival of contemporary performing arts that takes place in Pilton, Somerset, England. In addition to contempo ...

Cambridge Folk Festival The Cambridge Folk Festival is an annual music festival, established in 1965, held on the site of Cherry Hinton Hall in Cherry Hinton, one of the villages subsumed by the city of Cambridge, England. The festival is known for its eclectic mix o ...

Milwaukee Irish Fest Milwaukee Irish Fest (locally known as Irish Fest) is a yearly Irish-American festival held at the Henry Maier Festival Park, on Lake Michigan, United States, every third weekend in August. Over 130,000 people attend the Fest each year to take in ...

(Milwaukee, WI, USA), Trowbridge Folk Festival, Celtic Fusion Festival and the

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), ...

Cork Cork or CORK may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container ***Wine cork Places Ireland * Cork (city) ** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...

, Dundee,

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

, and

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated pop ...

Jazz Festivals. They have toured

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

and North America as well as parts of

South-East Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...

. In 1998, Salsa Celtica performed at Edinburgh's

Hogmanay Hogmanay ( , ) is the Scots word for the last day of the old year and is synonymous with the celebration of the New Year in the Scottish manner. It is normally followed by further celebration on the morning of New Year's Day (1 January) or in ...

celebrations in front of 40,000 people: this was broadcast live on UK television. In 1999 the band returned to Cuba after being invited to appear in

Havana Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.

and

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, who ...

to work with Conjunto Folklorico de Cutumba. In 2003, the band's third album ''El Agua De La Vida'' reached number 5 on the World Music Chart of Europe and number 24 in the end of year round-up 2003 World Music Chart for Europe. In 2004 the band toured the UK for the first time, including a headline performance at

Queen Elizabeth Hall The Queen Elizabeth Hall (QEH) is a music venue on the South Bank in London, England, that hosts classical, jazz, and avant-garde music, talks and dance performances. It was opened in 1967, with a concert conducted by Benjamin Britten. The Q ...

on London's

South Bank The South Bank is an entertainment and commercial district in central London, next to the River Thames opposite the City of Westminster. It forms a narrow strip of riverside land within the London Borough of Lambeth (where it adjoins Albert ...

. Salsa Celtica have appeared on

BBC Radio 2 BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 15 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the station broadcasts a wide range of content ...

's folk programme ''The

Mike Harding Mike Harding (born 23 October 1944) is an English singer, songwriter, comedian, author, poet, broadcaster and multi-instrumentalist. Harding has also been a photographer, traveller, filmmaker and playwright. Early life and education Harding's ...

Show'' and

BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also featuring. The st ...

's ''

Andy Kershaw Andrew J. G. Kershaw (born 9 November 1959) is a broadcaster and disc jockey, predominantly on radio, and known for his interest in world music. Kershaw's shows feature a mix of country, blues, reggae, folk music, African music, spoken word p ...

Show''. The release of ''El Agua De La Vida'' in 2004 was also met with critical acclaim, including in the ''

Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...

''. Salsa Celtica played in and on the soundtrack of the film ''

Driving Lessons ''Driving Lessons'' is a 2006 British comedy-drama film written and directed by Jeremy Brock. The plot focuses on the relationship between a shy teenaged boy and an ageing eccentric actress. Plot Seventeen-year-old Ben Marshall is the sensitiv ...

'' (2006), written and directed by Jeremy Brock, a coming-of-age story starring

Rupert Grint Rupert Alexander Lloyd Grint (; born 24 August 1988) is an English actor. Grint rose to fame for his role as Ron Weasley in the ''Harry Potter'' film series, for which he was cast at age eleven, having previously acted only in school plays an ...

Laura Linney Laura Leggett Linney (born February 5, 1964) is an American actress. Having studied acting at Juilliard School (1986-1990), she became known for her complex and multilayered performances on stage and screen. She has received various accolades, ...

and

Julie Walters Dame Julia Mary Walters (born 22 February 1950), known professionally as Julie Walters, is an English actress. She is the recipient of four British Academy Television Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, two International Emmy Awards, a ...

. In November 2006 the band were nominated for 2007

BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards The BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards celebrate outstanding achievement during the previous year within the field of folk music, with the aim of raising the profile of folk and acoustic music. The awards have been given annually since 2000 by British ra ...

in the "Best Traditional Song" category for their rendition of the traditional

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national id ...

song " The Grey Cockerel" sung as "The Grey Gallito" by guest vocalist

Eliza Carthy Eliza Amy Forbes Carthy, MBE (born 23 August 1975) is an English folk musician known for both singing and playing the fiddle. She is the daughter of English folk musicians singer/guitarist Martin Carthy and singer Norma Waterson. Life and c ...

Grupo Magnetico 2019 Glastonbury Festival 01 crop

Members of Salsa Celtica and Rumba Caliente formed an 11-piece Latin soul orchestra, Grupo Magnético, including Toby Shippey, Angelica Lopez and Ricardo Fernandez Pompa. In 2018, they released an album, ''Positivo''. In June 2019, they played at the

Current members

* Ricardo Fernandez Pompa -

lead vocals The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of th ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

* Simon Gall -

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a musica ...

* Megan Henderson- fiddle, lead vocals * Toby Shippey -

bongos Bongos ( es, bongó) are an Afro-Cuban percussion instrument consisting of a pair of small open bottomed hand drums of different sizes. They are struck with both hands, most commonly in an eight-stroke pattern called ''martillo'' (hammer). The ...

cowbell A cowbell (or cow bell) is a bell worn around the neck of free-roaming livestock so herders can keep track of an animal via the sound of the bell when the animal is grazing out of view in hilly landscapes or vast plains. Although they are ...

* Dougie "El Pulpo" Hudson - congas * Sue McKenzie -

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...

* Shanti Jayasinha -

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standar ...

* Phil O'Malley -

trombone The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrat ...

* John Speirs-

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and s ...

* Steve Kettley -

* Éamonn Coyne -

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

tenor guitar The tenor guitar or four-string guitar is a slightly smaller, four-string relative of the steel-string acoustic guitar or electric guitar. The instrument was initially developed in its acoustic form by Gibson and C.F. Martin so that players of ...

* Ross Ainslie -

bagpipes Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, ...

whistle A whistle is an instrument which produces sound from a stream of gas, most commonly air. It may be mouth-operated, or powered by air pressure, steam, or other means. Whistles vary in size from a small slide whistle or nose flute type to a lar ...

cittern The cittern or cithren ( Fr. ''cistre'', It. ''cetra'', Ger. ''Cister,'' Sp. ''cistro, cedra, cítola'') is a stringed instrument dating from the Renaissance. Modern scholars debate its exact history, but it is generally accepted that it is d ...

* Eric Alfonso -

timbales Timbales () or pailas are shallow single-headed drums with metal casing. They are shallower than single-headed tom-toms and usually tuned much higher, especially for their size.Orovio, Helio 1981. ''Diccionario de la música cubana: biográfi ...

* Joe Peat -

sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by ...

Discography

* ''Monstruos y Demonios, Angels and Lovers'' (1997) Eclectic Records * ''The Great Scottish Latin Adventure'' (2000) Greentrax Recordings * ''El Agua de la Vida'' (2003) Greentrax Recordings * ''El Camino'' (2006) Discos León * ''En Vivo en el Norte - In Concert'' (2010) Discos León * ''The Tall Islands'' (2014) Discos León

Former members

Martyn Bennett Martyn Bennett (17 February 1971 – 30 January 2005) was a Canadian-Scottish musician who was influential in the evolution of modern Celtic fusion, a blending of traditional Celtic and modern music. He was a piper, violinist, composer and pro ...

* Galo Ceron-Carrasco * Stevie Christie * Jenny Gardner * Steve Kettley * Paul Harrison * Andi Neate * Lino Rocha - Lead vocal/composer

References

External links

{{Authority control
Salsa Celtica's official website
Scottish folk music groups Salsa music groups Celtic fusion groups Musical groups established in 1995