The Barra MacNeils: An East Coast Christmas

The Barra MacNeils: An East Coast Christmas - 40th Anniversary Tour Cape Breton's first family of Celtic music brings forty years of Christmas to Invermere. One night, 300 seats. Some bands put on a Christmas show. The Barra MacNeils have been building one every year since 1986. Five siblings out of Sydney Mines, Cape Breton - Kyle, Lucy, Sheumas, Stewart and Boyd - with Jamie Gatti on bass. Seventeen albums. Stages shared with The Chieftains and Celine Dion. Christmas specials that still turn up on CMT and PBS every December. 2026 is their fortieth year, and the anniversary tour stops at the Columbia Valley Centre on its way across the country. An East Coast Christmas is carols given a Celtic turn, original east coast songs, and the kind of between-song storytelling that makes a 300-seat hall feel like a kitchen party. Ave Maria. Christmas in Killarney. Auld Lang Syne. And then a set of tunes that gets the room moving. Between the six of them: fiddle, Celtic harp, grand piano, accordion, bouzouki, mandolin, guitar, ukulele, bodhran and step dance - often several at once. All ages. Two sets with an intermission. It's the night that starts Christmas in the Valley.