Celtic Music

Formed by Scottish Accordionist Neil Gunn, The Gunn Slingers have exploded on to the Minnesota ceilidh scene. They play a mix of traditional Scottish tunes with hard groove and high energy to create a night of dancing and craic you will never forget.

Traditional music featuring three voices, wooden flutes, whistles, smallpipes, bodhran and duo guitars.

Laura MacKenzie, Dáithí Sproule and Ross Sutter are delighted to be performing together for the Minnesota Scottish Fair. Ross and Laura have been singing and playing as a duo for eons, often as “Ross & MacKenzie”, enjoying the stage at many Scottish and Irish festivals, fairs, performing arts centers and community events. Their renowned colleague Dáithí Sproule has joined them individually for numerous tours, regional performances and recordings, and as a trio they have made the rounds from stage to studio.

A duo featuring Dick Hensold, Highland Reel Pipes, Northumbrian smallpipes, and whistles, with Victor Zupanc, composer, music director for the Children’s Theater company, and fantastic keyboardist. The music will be centered around Dick’s extensive study into Cape Breton piping, but will also feature other Celtic music, on his other bagpipes. (Cape Breton is at the Eastern end of Nova Scotia, settled 200 years ago by many thousands of Gaelic-speaking Scots, who preserve a very old style of playing said to come from Scotland’s Hebrides Islands.)

Dalwhinnie presents engaging, lively Scottish music in concert and as a dance band, performing on fiddle, flute and piano. From heart-melting airs to driving reels, Dalwhinnie expresses the soul of Scottish tunes. Today the trio is pleased to accompany Fligmagearie and dancers from the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society.

Influenced by her love of fairy tales, Tolkien, and the world music section at her local library, Minnesota-based harpist Stephanie Claussen loves to perform Scottish tunes, Bach preludes, and anything that sounds medieval or French. A two-time winner at the Master level in the Minnesota Scottish Harp Competition, she later went on to win the title of 2018 US National Scottish Harp Champion. In 2021 she performed as one of four finalists in the North America Princess Margaret Celtic Harp Competition. She now splits her time between arranging, teaching and performing throughout the Midwest.

Dòrain is a folk quartet based in Saint Paul, playing both Scottish and Irish traditional music. They perform songs in English, Scots, and Scottish Gaelic, frequently incorporating complex vocal harmonies, and mix in a hearty dose of jigs and reels on fiddle, flute, concertina, Scottish smallpipes, guitar, bouzouki, harp and bodhrán. The band is made up of Iain Dove McAfee, Alexander Dove Lempke, Mattie Ernst and Cara Weggler Menge.