The Cottars

The Cottars are a Canadian Celtic musical group originating from Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia

Conception to Feast

From 2000 to March 2006 The Cottars were composed of: Ciarán and Fiona MacGillivray of Albert Bridge, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia and The MacKenzies of Cape Breton. In 2006, big changes took place and the current band was formed. Along with the MacGillivary's, came Bruce Timmins (guitar) of Big Bras Dor, Rachel Davis (fiddle & feet) of Baddeck, Nova Scotia. Their style of music is very much Celtic based with many traditional arrangements playing an important role; but, the Cape Breton style of performing these tunes and songs take wonderful presence in all.

In 2002, they released their first album entitled Made In Cape Breton, which was well received by the critics and public and led to them winning the Best New Artist award at the 2003 East Coast Music Awards. In 2004 The Cottars released their follow-up to Made In Cape Breton entitled On Fire; for this, The Cottars won the Best Roots/Traditional Album at the 2005 East Coast Music Awards. In 2006, the group's latest recording, Forerunner, was released on Rounder Records, which was their first American release.

The group was nominated for a Gemini Award in 2003 for their performance at the 2003 East Coast Music Awards in the category of Best Performance or Host in a Variety Program or Series.

In March 2006, The Cottars shared a 25-city tour with Irish group The Chieftains, ending in Carnegie Hall in New York City on St. Patrick's Day, sharing the stage with Elvis Costello. "The Cottars have the same kind of drive and energy The Chieftains had when we were first starting out", says Paddy Maloney, founder of The Chieftains. "With their combination of incredible musicianship, amazing voices and wonderful dancing, what a future they have ahead of them!" (See The Cottars quotes)

Now in 2011 they are still very much alive and are just coming back off a grand 5 week tour of Australia where acceptance and audulation were very much the go wherever they went. Topping out on CD sales and capacity audiences in most venue seemed to be the main. Actually setting a couple of capacity records seemed the logical thing to happen.

Feast to present

In 2009, it was announced that the band's fourth studio recording, Feast, will be released in early 2010 under Rounder Records, and will feature the new members in addition to the MacGillivray siblings. Though it has not yet reached its release date, pre-release reviews have been positive.^{[dated info]}

Endorsements

• ELIXIR guitar strings
• PIRASTRO violin strings
• Michael Burke whistles
• Del Eckles bodhráns

Discography

• 2002 - Made In Cape Breton
• 2004 - On Fire
• 2006 - Forerunner
• 2010 - Feast

External links

• The Cottars
• The Cottars MySpace
• The Cottars Un-official Forum
• Gemini Awards database