Fèis Rois brings their 21st anniversary year to a terrific climax with a celebratory concert at Celtic Connections. Thirty very talented Fèis Rois musicians and singers will take to the stage in Glasgow Royal Concert Hall’s Main Auditorium on Saturday 20th January 2007 in the Festival’s only Youth concert.

The Dingwall-based organisation was set up in 1986 to promote and develop Gaelic language and indigenous culture for young people in the Highlands. It has gone from strength to strength, and with a current staff of six employees manages a dynamic and impressive year-round programme. From small beginnings of one week-long event, the organisation now runs three residential Fèisean, twenty community weekly classes, monthly master classes, specialist teenage group activities and two education programmes, one throughout Scotland and one in four areas of Highland. Fèis Rois also created the very popular Ceilidh Trail, now successfully adopted by five other areas.

“This concert has given us a chance to bring twenty of our most successful graduates together on one stage. It has been a constant delight to see how many of our participants have gone on to a career in music, Gaelic and the arts. They all have very happy memories of those weeks spent together at the Fèis in Gairloch and Ullapool, which had such a profound effect on them”, explained Manager Rita Hunter “and we hope to recapture that special Fèis atmosphere in our concert.”

Members of Croft No Five, Box Club, Lauren MacColl Band and Anna Massie will be joined by performers Rachel Walker, Fiona Dalgetty and Rachel Hair. Fèis students now studying traditional music at Benbecula College, the RSAMD and Strathclyde University will play with some of this year’s Ceilidh Trail and Senior Fèis participants.
“The anniversary year began with the entire team at the Junior Fèis being past participants, and we had a wonderful Ceòlraidh concert supported by Highland 2007 and the Faculty of Advocates in September featuring 30 of our teenagers, so now we will bring both those age groups together for this final celebration.”

Tickets for the concert are £12.50 and are available from Celtic Connections at www.celticconnections.com  or 0141 353 8000. Fèis Rois has booked a bus for supporters leaving from Strathpeffer, Dingwall and Inverness so please phone 01349 862600 to reserve a place and come and catch this very special one-off concert.