(upbeat music) - Celebrate the season with Celtic Christmas from Utopia Early Music Ensemble.

It's a concert of carols, reels and winter lullabies from Celtic traditions.

And joining us to share more is soprano Emily Nelson.

Hi Emily.

- Hi.

- Thanks for being here.

- Thank you so much.

- You're bringing in this season with some great traditions.

- Yeah, yeah, this is the one that just keeps going.

You know, people still come to the concert every year, and so we just keep offering this one each year, it's become a tradition.

- Yeah, so talk some more about the music- - Sure.

- ... and the traditions it comes from.

(Emily laughs) - Sure, so this is music that, just like the title implies, you know, it's from all over kind of the British Isles.

It's a nice combination of sort of festive dancey music and some very sweet things.

And of course, for me, there's no way to bring in the new year without hearing Chris LeCluyse sing "Auld Lang Syne".

That's sort of my new thing.

(laughs) - That's your holiday thing and I know that.

- That's my holiday thing.

- Yeah, they come from all over from the Isle of Man, England, Wales, Scotland.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- And I wanna hear more about the performers.

You're a soprano.

- Hm-hmm.

Yeah, so this concert will have four singers.

We have a wonderful fiddle player named Bronwen Beecher, who she studied in Nova Scotia.

So she's really familiar with the Cape Breton style.

And yeah, we have a harp player coming from Houston and there'll be Irish flute, a bodhran an instrument that's a percussion instrument that's really fun.

And cello, yeah.

- Yeah, and you all come together to make this great music?

- We do, we love it.

- Yeah.

- Yep.

- And tell me a little about Utopia Early Music.

Obviously, you wanted to keep it alive.

- Absolutely, yeah.

So, oh my goodness, I can't remember.

I think we're on our 17th season, something like that.

It's been a while.

Usually we do more like classical, medieval renaissance baroque music.

This one is a little bit more in the folk vein, yeah.

So it's nice to mix it up.

- Wonderful.

Well, thank you so much for being here, and good luck with the concert.

- Thank you so much.

- And if you'd like to know more about that upcoming holiday, Celtic Christmas with the Utopia Early Music Ensemble, it's December 19th through 21st at the Cathedral Church of St.

Mark.

Go to utopiaearlymusic.org.

Utopiaearlymusic.org.

I'm Mary Dickson.

Thanks for watching "Contact".

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