The Pipes of Christmas will celebrate its 23rd season with performances in New Jersey and New York this December. The holiday favorite opens on Saturday, December 18 at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, located at 921 Madison Avenue (at 73rd Street) for a 2PM performance. The concert moves across the Hudson River on Sunday, December 19 to Central Presbyterian Church located at 70 Maple Street in Summit, NJ with performances at 2PM.
For those weary of the ceaseless stream of secular seasonal music from department stores to TV, the Pipes of Christmas offers a spiritual and traditional take on the season that connects concertgoers to the holiday in a fresh, meaningful way. The show features tunes such as, Highland Cathedral, Joy to the World, and Amazing Grace, all performed live on pipes and drums, harp and fiddle, and organ and brass and more. Not only does the performance define Christmas cheer, but also it inspires those of Celtic descent to retrace and reconnect to their ancestry.
The concert presents the music of Christmas accompanied by readings taken from the Celtic literature of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Featured performers include singer Margaret Kelly from Aberdeen, Scotland, James Robinson from the film “Braveheart,” New England fiddle champion Paul Woodiel, champion harpist Rachel Clemente, and the Pipe Major Kevin Ray Blandford Memorial Pipe Band from Redlands, CA among many more.
Tickets Available Now
Tickets may be purchased online exclusively through ShowTix4U. (Be certain to select “The Learned Kindred of Currie” as the organization name.)
Learned Kindred’s Only Fundraiser
This annual concert is the Learned Kindred’s only fundraiser, generating their operating budget for the year ahead. Losing the concert income is financially devastating to outreach programmes which support young people in education in Scotland, Canada and the United States through scholarships and sponsorships.
Proceeds from the concert support an extensive music scholarship program, which includes the Carol Hassert Memorial Fine Arts Scholarship at Summit (NJ) High School as well as annual gifts to the National Piping Centre, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (both located in Glasgow, Scotland), Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Royal National Mòr and the Gaelic College in Nova Scotia, among others.
About The Pipes of Christmas
Since making its debut in 1999, The Pipes of Christmas has played to standing room only audiences. Now a cherished holiday event, the concert provides audiences with a stirring and reverent celebration of the Christmas season and the Celtic spirit. Audience-goers return year after year to experience the program, many reporting that the Pipes of Christmas has become part of their family’s annual Christmas tradition.
The concert has been lavished with critical acclaim. In his review for Classical New Jersey Magazine, Paul Somers wrote, “The whole evening was constructed to introduce gem after gem and still have a finale which raised the roof. In short, it was like a well constructed fireworks show on the Glorious Fourth. The Westfield Leader described the concert as “a unique sound of power and glory nowhere else to be found.”
The Pipes of Christmas Virtual Concert, produced by The Clan Currie Society / The Learned Kindred of Currie, has been nominated for an award in the prestigious MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards (Na Trads) 2021.
About the Learned Kindred of Currie
The Curries/Currys, originally known as MacMhuirich were for centuries hereditary bards to the MacDonald Lords of the Isles and the Clan MacDonald of Clanranald.
Professor Hugh Cheape of the National Centre for Gaelic Language on the Isle of Skye said of the MacMhuirichs, “This kindred as ‘bardic dynasty’ with such a remarkable history ought now to be recognised on the wider stage of Scottish culture as a family with an independent role at the centre of a widely connected and well-ordered culture that characterised Gaelic Scotland.”
For further information contact:
Robert (Bob) Currie (United States) [email protected], (908) 858-6357
Neil Gunn (Scotland) [email protected], 07493 509991
Clan Currie Society Facebook page: facebook.com/ClanCurrieSociety
Concert Facebook page: facebook.com/ThePipesofChristmas