Cape Breton
Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia
Photo: Steve Rankin
Over 20 years ago, six dynamic performers came together at a late-night session during the Celtic Colours International Music Festival and sparked the creation of the award-winning band Beòlach. After a short hiatus, to great excitement, expectation, and acclaim original members Wendy MacIsaac (fiddle, piano, stepdance), Màiri Rankin (fiddle, stepdance), and Mac Morin (piano, stepdance, accordion) re-formed the group three years ago as a quartet with new member Matt MacIsaac (bagpipes, whistles, guitar). With innovative arrangements of traditional tunes, Beòlach’s energy on stage demonstrates their mastery of and passion for their musical inheritance.
The music of Cape Breton Island is largely descended from the Scottish Gaelic melodies brought over in the late 18th and early 19th centuries by settlers fleeing the forced evictions known as the Highland Clearances. Musicians have staunchly preserved and nurtured this style, which features energetic interplay between fiddle and piano, passing it to the next generation “knee-to-knee” for over 200 years. Fittingly, that’s the musical journey for each member of Beòlach—nurtured by family members from an early age at home. Exposure to multiple instruments central to the music as well as stepdancing is a common throughline connecting their experiences. “My first bit of music was stepdancing,” Wendy recalls. “My mom taught stepdancing lessons—with Natalie MacMaster’s mom, actually—in communities on Cape Breton and I’d go out with them and just pick it up from being in the circle at those lessons.” Màiri and Mac both learned to stepdance first as well, and by the time all three picked up the instrument they are known for—fiddle for Wendy and Màiri, piano for Mac—the distinct rhythm and feeling of Cape Breton music was already in them and they were quickly in demand for dances across the island.
Wendy MacIsaac and Màiri Rankin are standout fiddlers among Cape Breton’s wealth of great fiddlers. Both took up fiddle at age 12 and count respected fiddler and teacher Stan Chapman as an early mentor. Wendy is hailed as one of the “old school” style of players, and performs to international acclaim. Màiri is one of the influential Rankin family; she has developed her musical style pulling from her native Cape Breton and her family’s roots in North Uist, Scotland. Noted pianist Mac Morin names Tracey Dares and the late John Morris Rankin as early influences on piano, and as a teenager, he quickly moved from accompanying musicians at house parties and local dances to “debuting” when renowned Cape Breton fiddler Buddy MacMaster needed a pianist to sub in at a wedding. Though not related to Wendy, Matt MacIsaac likewise grew up in a family with a strong musical tradition—in his case, piping, with three uncles who all played bagpipes. Stints in the competitive piping world, tours with Natalie MacMaster, and time in the Canadian Forces took turns as demands on his time before joining Beòlach in 2019.
Beòlach has recorded three albums: Beòlach (2001), Variations (2004), and All Hands (2019), all three of which gained critical acclaim and earned nominations for East Coast Music Awards, in addition to a Juno nomination for All Hands. In 2005, the group was nominated for a Canadian Folk Music Award as Best Instrumental Artist, and in 2021, the group won Best Traditional Album of the Year and Best Instrumental Group of the Year. It seems fair to say Beòlach’s return to the stage has lived up to expectations … and then some.