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December
24, 2000 Kendra MacGillivray is making the most of her trip home to Antigonish County for the holidays. The fiddler from Lanark is throwing a Christmas ceilidh on Wednesday at Piper's Pub in Antigonish to celebrate the release of her latest recording, Over The Waves. Last month,
MacGillivray launched the album in Halifax to a packed crowd at the Old
Triangle Alehouse in downtown Halifax. She's pulled together the same band
for her homecoming - brother Troy on piano, Dave MacIsaac on guitar, John
Chiasson on bass and Scott Ferguson on drums. Sister Sabra will be dancing
at the party, which begins at 6:30 p.m. |
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November
21, 2000 You can catch Kendra tomorrow morning on CBC Newsworld between 9:30-10:00am Atlantic time |
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November
19, 2000
Located on the corner of Bedford Row and Prince Street, the establishment boasts three sections Tigh An Cheoil (House of Music), The Pour House and The Snug (a European-style bar). The place was packed. Kendra sure knows how to draw a crowd.
Kendra was joined on stage with a smokin' band - Scott Ferguson on drums, jazzman John Chiasson on bass, her brother Troy MacGillivray on piano and Halifax's dynamic multi-instrumentalist Dave MacIsaac on guitar. Kendra's massage therapist sister Sabra MacGillivray stepped out in front of the band and showed us what real step-dancing is all about. Celebrating Kendra's release and Evans and Doherty's new establishment were Liberal culture critic Don Downe, who tried a step dance or two with my Herald colleague Andrea Nemetz and CBC producer Mary Jane Webber, fiddling Tourism and Culture Minister Rodney MacDonald, fellow Caper and Frank magazine scribe Cliff Boutilier, Brookes and Fiona Diamond, Natalie MacMaster's manager André Bourgeois, Liberal communication director Greg MacEachern, Tory fund-raiser Alice McCarron, Glenora Distillery's Lauchie MacLean, Tidemark Music's Shelley Nordstrom and Zandra MacInnis, Sam the Record Man's Debbie Rockola and Chris Flahaven, ATV's Todd Battis, Cossette Atlantic's Kate Bonnycastle, RD Productions' Pat Doyle, Gemstone Entertainment's Jane and Don Secord and Annie Oakley, promoter Michael Ardenne, Jay Cleary, artist manager Ed Levick, nject's creative director Todd Yeadon, Global's entertainment guy Bob Cowan, volunteer extraordinaire Lori Doucette and musician/actor Denise Brown, the smashing dancer Sara Cluett, Air Canada's Joanne Langevin, Herald music critic Stephen Cooke, fellow Caper Rob Clarke, the hunky Tyler Foley, artist manager Cathy Stockley, Encore Management Group's Sherri Keirstead, Revenue Canada's stepdancer Angus MacIsaac, piper Matt MacIsaac, piper Ian MacIsaac and Joe Murphy. Get out and buy Kendra's new CD, it would make a great Christmas gift. And check out The Old Triangle. -------------- PHOTOS: Courtesy Greg Guy, the Halifax Herald Top Left:
Brian Doherty, Kendra MacGillivray and Kevin Evans |
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November
14, 2000 Kendra will officially launch her new CD "Over The Waves" tonight at "The Old Triangle Irish Alehouse" in the "Tigh an Cheoil" (House of Music) room. The pub is located on Prince St. & Bedford Row. Kendra, along with special guests, Troy MacGillivray, Dave MacIsaac, John Chiasson, Scott Ferguson, Ann Gray and Sabra MacGillivray will take the stage at 6:30 PM to play selections from her new CD "Over the Waves". |
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November
9, 2000
"My mother says as a baby I'd sit there on the floor and just listen and watch him play," says the 28-year-old performer with the cascading curls flashing a trademark brilliant smile. When she played her first solo - at a concert at the Antigonish Legion when she was 10 years old, just a year after taking up the fiddle - she chose one of her grandfather's polkas. "Polkas were his specialty," explains MacGillivray, sitting in the recital hall of the Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts in Halifax where she has been teaching Scottish fiddling for the past two years. "In the Antigonish square set there are five figures based on polkas and they are very, very popular. My grandfather was known as the polka king, every time he played a dance, he'd play a new polka. I put polkas in my shows that he popularized - Honeymoon Polka and Polka No. 3, for example - and everyone loves them. They're just a different type of tune." On her first two albums Antigonish's Own, released in 1990 when she was just 17, and Clear The Tracks released in 1996, MacGillivray played homage to her grandfather. "On the first one, I played some of my grandfather's music and some traditional tunes I was playing at the time. "On Clear the Track, I played some tunes my grandfather recorded and tunes my grandfather played a lot but may not have recorded. It was very traditional and very unique, I was playing polkas that hadn't been heard since my grandfather played." Her new CD takes the vivacious fiddler in new directions. In stores now, Over the Waves will be officially released at a party 6:30-9:30 p.m. Tuesday at The Old Triangle Alehouse, Evans and Doherty's new bar on Prince Street. "I wrote two tunes and (brother) Troy wrote a tune. There are lots of traditional tunes and a lot of contemporary tunes by people like Jerry Holland, Brenda Stubbert, John Morris Rankin and Sandy MacIntyre." In fact, MacIntyre's contribution is the Kendra MacGillivray Jig. It's one of two pieces named for MacGillivray on the 13-track disc, that also features a banjo set with J.P. Cormier and a pipe set with champion piper Ann Gray. "The other is the Kendra MacGillivray hornpipe," she says. "Last spring I was in Edmonton playing at Calvin Vollrath's CD release and John Arcand told me he had written a Scottish-type tune that had no name and when he heard me play, he thought it sounded like me. It is such an honour." The title track is by Mexican composer Juventino Ross. "My grandfather used to play it all the time and then it had many parts. Now it just has two," MacGillivray explains. "So I went out to get as many parts as I could and found five or six and Chris Church did the arrangement and members from Symphony Nova Scotia performed back-up and it's beautiful." Produced by Scott Ferguson, the new disc is being distributed by Tidemark. Her first album was placed in stores by her mother, Janice, who was also her accompanist. Troy, 20 and a music student at St. Francis Xavier University, plays piano on her other two releases, and has accompanied his sister on gigs 'round the world. MacGillivray's 24-year-old sister Sabra, makes her first CD appearance on Over the Waves - Sabra's flying feet can be heard on Fergus Rag. "It's so percussive. It's just like having drums," notes MacGillivray, whose own 20-year highland dancing career began when she was six. "With this CD we played a lot of music that is very danceable. We arranged numbers so dancers can use them. "Whistlin' Rufus is a tune we used to do a dance called the cakewalk to. It was in my head for years and I tried playing it and it came out really nice." MacGillivray, who also stepdances as does Troy, was playing the piano and dancing before she took up the fiddle. "It really helped me with fiddling. Dancing gave me a sense of rhythm and timing and I got experience performing in highland dance competitions and piano recitals for the Sisters of Saint Martha. "When I was nine, my mother and grandmother were taking fiddle lessons and I heard them practice and I had this tune in my head and picked up a fiddle and I could play a jig that first day, so my mother thought I should get some lessons. "I went to Stan Chapman, who taught a group class with quite a few recognizable names - Natalie MacMaster, Ashley MacIsaac, Wendy MacIsaac, Jackie Dunn, Dougie MacDonald, Neil Beaton and John Pellerine were all in the class. In 1984 we all played for the Pope when he came to Halifax. "Eventually I took some classical lessons with Robert "Bob" Murray. I thought it would help me with my technique when I was playing the harder Scottish tunes and it has helped with my technique and intonation." MacGillivray says she always loved playing the fiddle, loved learning new tunes, loved getting up on stage and meeting people, but didn't think she could make a career of it. So she took a degree in business administration at St. F.X., which has enabled her to manage her own career, by treating her fiddle performances like a business instead of "just playing." When she graduated and got jobs at corporate events and national conventions which took her to Japan, Germany, Scotland, Iceland, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Barbados, Australia and Canada and the United States, a musical career was too good an opportunity to pass up. MacGillivray has played with international performers like Alasdair Fraser and Skyedance, Canada's Michael Burgess, and Nova Scotia favourites John Allan Cameron, Evans & Doherty, Natalie MacMaster, Ashley MacIsaac, and Richard Wood among others and has opened for The Rankins, Great Big Sea and Crash Test Dummies to name just a few. Among her most memorable appearances was a "magical" show in Bristol, England in 1997, on a huge stage shaped like the mouth of a whale with a full back-up band for an audience of more than 50,000. Another was her ECMA Showcase in 1998 at Your Father's Moustache. MacGillivray not only makes music, but feels a responsibility to pass it on, as her grandfather did before her in his Lanark home where dozens of fiddlers would drop by "to play some tunes and dance, but only after the work was done - he was a farmer". MacGillivray has been teaching for 12 years, including seven summers at the Gaelic College in Cape Breton, and has passed on her knowledge to hundreds of students. She draws on her own experiences in Chapman's class. "We'd start slow and have it almost up to full speed by the end of the class and Stan always had a piano player. It helped you hear what the finished product was supposed to sound like, so I always play the piano while I'm teaching. "I try to get them to memorize the tunes so they can hear what they're playing. Ear playing is a big part of traditional music, that's how it was always done." (Above photo by: Tim Krochak / Herald PHoto) |
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October
31, 2000 Kendra's new CD "Over The Waves" was released today to record stores across the country. The album is a mix of traditional and contemporary styles and features a host of well-known musicians from the area. There are several original compositions of Kendra's as well as a composition by her brother, Troy MacGillivray which starts the CD off with a bang. More information as well as sound clips are available in the "Recordings" page. |
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July 28, 2000 Kendra has just finished an amazing run of 25+ shows over the last week for the Tall Ships festival in Halifax and Dartmouth, NS. This included usually playing 3 or 4 shows in one day, doing the "DRUM" show in Halifax, the Festival Of Sail in Dartmouth and even playing onboard a German ship for a private function. On the recording front, all recording and mixing for the upcoming new album entitled "Over The Waves" has been finished and the album should be released within a month or two. Stay tuned here for further details.... |
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May 29, 2000 Kendra is presently in the studio recording her third album, untitled at this point. The album is being recorded and mixed in Halifax and is scheduled for release in Summer 2000. Look for sound clips and more information here shortly! |
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February
15, 2000 The following is a press
release issued from the StFX ANTIGONISH, NS --- This one is for you! St. Francis Xavier University has joined forces with several community partners to offer a four-day, jam-packed Come Home 2000 event this summer that will culminate in a huge concert featuring some of the Maritimes best artists. Organizers say the Aug. 10-13 event, which celebrates the new Millennium, is sure to offer something for everyone. "Come Home 2000 is going to be THE event of the summer in Nova Scotia," says Noreen Nunn, StFX Alumni Affairs Officer and Come Home 2000 co-chair. "A volunteer committee has been working for over a year now to host a first-class Millennium event. Thousands are expected to attend. We are encouraging all StFX alumni, former and current Antigonish residents to make plans to attend. "Our phone is already ringing off the hook. Alumni from as far away as Texas have already booked accommodations. It's going to be the largest gathering of X-Rings ever seen." StFX University in partnership with representatives of the town and county of Antigonish, the Antigonish Chamber of Commerce and the Antigonish Regional Development Authority is sponsoring this special summer homecoming. StFX will still host its annual fall homecoming, taking place this year from Sept. 29 to Oct. 1. Lisa Gourley, Come Home 2000 coordinator, says she is thrilled to be involved in an event that will bring people "home" to Antigonish. "Come Home 2000 is shaping up to be the event of the summer, and the community of Antigonish is proud to host this unique and special celebration. Crystal Cliffs will come alive with music with a ceilidh while top-ranked entertainers will perform on Saturday night at the Millennium Concert. Saturday night's concert is a "not to be missed" event. Mark your calendars - Come Home 2000 is the event of the summer!" "This is truly a celebration of the strong community spirit that has endured throughout this last Millennium and, which will continue into the next. At the end of this celebration, I am sure that the question on the minds of the many visiting will have been 'why didn't I come home sooner?'" says Chris Storseth, ARDA development officer and Come Home 2000 co-chair. Weekend highlights include a Thursday night lobster dinner at Morrison Hall and a Friday night ceilidh at Crystal Cliffs featuring the talents of Nova Scotia entertainers Howie MacDonald, Kendra MacGillivray, Tracey Dares and Dave MacIsaac. Saturday night's huge Millennium Concert at the Oland Centre stadium will feature such top-ranked musical entertainers as Rawlins Cross, Men of the Deeps, the Barra MacNeils and Mary Jane Lamond. Negotiations are under way with other entertainers. Special guests will include Denis Ryan as emcee. The concert will be a tribute to John Morris Rankin, Class of 1980, who planned to participate before his tragic death earlier this year. Organizers encourage everyone planning to attend Come Home 2000 to contact the Come Home 2000 Registration Hotline at 1-877-909-StFX. People are encouraged to book early to avoid disappointment for the entertainment venues. Registration deadline for Come Home 2000 is June 15, 2000. Come Home 2000 committee members include Dave Austen, John Beaton, Allan Bond, Maureen Brown, Jeff Dee, Bill Garvie, Raff Henderson, Doug Ives, Bill Kiely, Barb MacDonald, Bernardine MacDonald, Joe MacDonald, Lauchie MacIsaac, Norma MacKenzie, Monica MacKinnon, Dave MacLean, Marlene Melanson, Breton Murphy, Heather Myers, Patti Smith, Pam Widmeyer, Shaun Chisholm, Doug Myer, and John Hagar. |
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October
1999 Cape Breton fiddle sensation Ashley MacIsaac made an unexpected appearance on stage at the Celtic concert for the Canmore Highland Games on September 4. President Sally Garen said, "John Allan Cameron called us from the aircraft to tell us that Ashley was on board and coming to play at the concert with him! It was a complete surprise and it sold a few tickets for sure." The concert was opened by Jan Pearce, a local Celtic harpist and it was the perfect counterbalance to John Allan Cameron who was joined by his son Stuart Cameron, John Kanakis, Ashley MacIsaac, and Kendra MacGillivray (another up-and-coming fiddler from Antigonish, Nova Scotia). The grand winner of the Royal Bank Gold Medal Piobaireachd and Professional MSR Competition was Anne Gray of Calgary, who also plays with the City of Regina Pipe Band. She won the gold medal and $500 in cash. Over 16,000 spectators attended the Highland games which were held on September 5 and presided over by Chieftain Bob King, President of Big Rock Brewery of Calgary. The event featured 22 bands competing, along with over 400 dancers and 300 individual piping and drumming competitors. The Sunday evening Ceilidh was sold out as usual, even with expanded seating totalling 1,400 in place. It was a full tent! Entertainment was provided by the Royal Scottish Country Dancers of Calgary, the Regent Irish School of Dancing of Calgary, Scott Benson of Saskatoon on fiddle, John Allan Cameron as master of ceremonies, The Glengarry Bhoys of Maxville, Ontario, and the City of Regina Pipe Band. Sally Garen said, "I wonder what we can do next year to top this! We're always looking for Celtic entertainers and more volunteers! Next year will have to be special as it will be our tenth anniversary and the year 2000." Anyone wishing to participate next year, should call (403) 678-9454, or fax (403) 678-3385. |
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July 28, 1999 The games always brings together the best and the latest in Celtic music. Kendra MacGillivray from Antigonish, Nova Scotia will perform at the Friday night concert. With her brother, Troy, on piano and her sister, Sabra, stepdancing, this will be another family performance. David MacIsaac will add his stellar guitar-playing to this exciting performance. An interesting note is that Kendra and her sister participated in the games several years ago, that time as dancers. Kendra and her brother, Troy have performed in Japan, Luxembourg, the Scandinavian countries, Germany, Holland, Scotland, across Canada and the U.S.A and of course, this year in Maxville. On Saturday, Kendra will be hosting a fiddling workshop in the Angus Gray and in the afternoon, Kendra will be playing in the Saturday afternoon ceilidh which will feature local fiddlers, as well as the Glengarry Highland Games massed fiddles. Both the massed fiddlers and Kendra and her excellent group of musicians will be featured on the Friday concert. |
On Tuesday,
stunning Antigonish fiddler Kendra MacGillivray unleashed her wonderful
new CD, Over the Waves, at downtown Halifax's new bar, The Old Triangle.
It's a stylish Irish pub owned by long-time Irish balladeers Kevin Evans
and Brian Doherty and partner Gerry Guest.
"I
didn't think I would fill one room here," the modest fiddler told me
at the break.
Antigonish
Fiddler Kendra MacGillivray doesn't have any vivid memories of her
grandfather - he died when she was four. But
Hugh A. MacDonald, a pioneer in recording Scottish fiddle music in the
1930s, definitely had an impact.