ORGANISERS of one of Scotland's most successful music festivals are planning to expand into the United States.
Celtic Connections, a winter celebration of roots, traditional and trans-Atlantic folk music with hundreds of shows at venues in Glasgow, is exploring a plan for a satellite festival in New York.
Organisers are currently involved in preliminary discussions in the Big Apple about expanding across the Atlantic.
The artistic director of the festival since 2007, Donald Shaw, a founder of the band Capercaillie, is expanding the festival within Scotland and looking for a sponsor.
In 2015 the festival will for the first time be teaming up with the Edinburgh International Festival for an event that will be part of the January celebrations and of the summer festival in the nation's capital.
A New York festival would be a major move for Celtic Connections, which features many American artists. It is hoped it would tap into the large Scottish diaspora in north America.
A spokeswoman confirmed: "There are some very preliminary discussions taking place but nothing is confirmed."
Around 30 per cent of the audience for the festival is from overseas, At the launch of this year's festival Mr Shaw said: "At no other festival do musicians embrace the opportunity to collaborate with musicians from different countries and musical genres more than they do at Celtic Connections."
Next year's Celtic Connections runs from January 15 to February 1 and features 2,000 musicians in 300 shows.
It will include strands from earlier years, including historical themes, shows in memory of signature artists, Americana, indie music and one-off collaborations, as well as a new strand highlighting hand-made instruments from around the world.
A tribute to Martyn Bennett, described as "one of Scotland's great musical visionaries", opens the festival. He died ten years ago aged 33, and will be celebrated with an orchestrated version of his most praised album, Grit.
There will be 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.
Another concert, Band of Friends, will be a celebration of the life and music of the late Irish blues guitarist Rory Gallagher.
The hand made instruments theme will feature The Fiddletree, a show inspired by a book of the same name written by violin maker Otis Thomas.
The award winning Glaswegian composer Craig Armstrong will also be part of the festival.
Other bands appearing include Skerryvore, Nathaniel Rateliff, Manran, King Creosote, Dick Gaughan, Calexico, Fairport Convention and Carlos Nunez. A recent addition to the festival is singer Van Morrison.
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