Celtic Connections, the celebration of roots, traditional and trans-Atlantic folk music which begins tomorrow in Glasgow, is exploring a plan for a week-long annual festival in another city - New York.

On the eve of the opening of the perennially successful event, which opens with an orchestrated tribute to Martyn Bennett, its director Donald Shaw confirmed plans are afoot to open a seven-day expansion festival in the Big Apple.

A regular New York festival, based at a single venue in the US city, would be a major move for Celtic Connections, which features many American and trans-Atlantic artists and it would help it tap into the large Scottish diaspora in north America.

Shaw, whose festival runs until February 1 and will feature 2,000 musicians in 300 shows, said that he had hoped to announce the new New York connection this week but there are more details to be finalised.

"We are in talks with the venue, but those talks are open-ended at the moment," he said.

"The talks are ongoing, once everything is in place we can talk more about it - there are other issues too, including the question of visas."

This year's festival opens with a special concert at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, the live world première of the performance of Bennett's album Grit, originally released in 2003.

It is ten years since Bennett died at the age of 33 and the show will see the album's music - which was constructed in a studio - performed "live" with an orchestra of folk, jazz and classical players led by violinist and composer Greg Lawson.

Shaw said: "We always try to have a sense of occasion to the opening night and this certainly will, it is in keeping with this being the first night of the festival.

"I am excited about it, as you know it is primarily made up of orchestral musicians and the process of creating that has been trying to get inside Martyn's head - it should be memorable."

The festival also features a tribute night to poet and political activist Ewan MacColl curated by his sons Calum and Neill,

MacColl, who died in 1989, established the country's first folk club and started BBC radio's ground-breaking Radio Ballads series.

The Blue Nile's Paul Buchanan will be joining the line up for Blood & Roses: The Songs of Ewan MacColl in Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on January 25.

Norma Waterson of The Watersons, her husband Martin Carthy and daughter Eliza Carthy as well as Pulp's former lead singer Jarvis Cocker will be joining the concert.

Four of MacColl's grandsons, who are musicians themselves, have also joined the concert - Jamie MacColl, Harry Mead, Alex MacColl and Tom MacColl.

Shaw said the concert will be a highlight of the festival and added: "It is a testament to him that artists of all kinds are coming to sing his songs.

"I think you can see the influence he had, because he really lived his life as a spokesman, with his interest in politics, and that was how he lived his life - musicians can be reticent about doing that these days.

"It is always interesting, perhaps strange sometimes, to put a name out there and see the response that you get, but that is how music works."

Other bands appearing include Skerryvore, Withered Hand, Julie Fowlis, Nathaniel Rateliff, Manran, King Creosote, Dick Gaughan, Calexico, Fairport Convention and Carlos Nunez and many others.