{"id":34339,"date":"2024-03-14T15:35:02","date_gmt":"2024-03-14T19:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=34339"},"modified":"2024-03-14T15:35:04","modified_gmt":"2024-03-14T19:35:04","slug":"mccain-to-bring-celtic-sense-of-home-to-st-patricks-day-eve-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/mccain-to-bring-celtic-sense-of-home-to-st-patricks-day-eve-performance\/","title":{"rendered":"McCain to bring Celtic sense of home to St. Patrick\u2019s Day-eve performance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Celtic music can foster a sense of \u201ccoming home\u201d for people with Scottish and Irish roots, but it also transcends to people of every heritage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the feeling that Eleanor McCain will bring to the St. Andrew\u2019s College stage this Saturday, March 16, with the Aurora Cultural Centre\u2019s presentation of Eleanor McCain in Concert: A Night of Celtic Traditions & Classics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An acclaimed singer, McCain will be joined on stage for the St. Patrick\u2019s Day-eve concert by performers Brigham Phillips and Jason Fowler, with the North Atlantic Drift trio serving as the opening act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout her career, McCain has recorded six critically-acclaimed albums, including 2017\u2019s True North: The Canadian Songbook, and has collaborated with Canadian performers ranging from Chantal Kreviazuk and Natalie MacMaster to John McDermott and Roch Voisine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis music resonates with many people because it has beautiful, lilting, lyrical melodies that really pull at your emotional heartstrings,\u201d says McCain. \u201cPlus, a lot of the poetry, the situations, the stories, a lot of the songs tell stories that really draw people in, but there is very often an emotional component to them. There are a lot of songs of longing for home and because the lyrics are so real and so down to earth and accessible, they are very captivating in that way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hailing from the small town of Florenceville, NB, McCain\u2019s earliest musical foundation came from her mother, who, as a pianist, could often be found at the church organ. When she was nine-years-old, however, on a visit to her aunt in New York City, she saw the musical \u201cAnnie\u201d on Broadway, an experience which sparked a life-long interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was really a turning point for me to do something in a more professional vein,\u201d she says. \u201cFrom there, my mom took me to Fredericton once a week where I started taking singing lessons, 90 minutes each way from Florenceville. The voice teacher I had there is still one of my best teachers. She was fabulous and [fostered] the dedication to music and singing from a very young age.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From there, McCain studied Classical Music at Mount Allison University, receiving a Bachelor of Music degree with a focus on Vocal Performance. She continued her training after moving to Toronto, but found herself deviating just a little from the classics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI started to change lanes and get more into working with songwriters, getting more into a sensibility of fusing the classical with some jazz, with some folk roots, pop ballads, and I mixed them together and realized what was most important for me in music was the emotion behind the song, not necessarily the vocal style. Some people have made comments over the years that maybe I should choose a style, but that is my style \u2013 focusing on the emotional content of music. It\u2019s a mix of styles in a melting pot!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked what fuels her creativity, she responds that she has \u201cnever really found the words that adequately describe the movie that goes on in my head\u201d on what draws her to a song, but it always comes back to the emotion of things \u2013 and that is something she hopes is felt by local audiences this weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hope the music touches them in the same way it does me,\u201d she says. \u201cIt is not just a Celtic journey they go on, but maybe it is an emotional journey they go on as well. Hopefully in many ways the music touches their hearts the way it does me. I\u2019m excited and honoured to be asked to sing in concert and it\u2019s always nice to celebrate St. Patrick\u2019s Day eve with this music.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eleanor McCain in Concert will take place Saturday, March 16, at 7.30 p.m. at the Wirth Theatre at St. Andrew\u2019s College. Tickets are $40 and can be obtained at auroraculturalcentre.ca or by calling the box office at 905-713-1818.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Celtic music can foster a sense of \u201ccoming home\u201d for people with Scottish and Irish roots, but it also transcends to people of every heritage. That\u2019s the feeling that Eleanor McCain will bring to the St. Andrew\u2019s College stage this Saturday, March 16, with the Aurora Cultural Centre\u2019s presentation of Eleanor McCain in Concert: A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":34340,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/2024-03-14-05.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8VR","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-14 12:10:40","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}