BCMFest, Boston, Massachusetts’ annual grassroots, musician-run, winter Celtic music festival ,marks its fifth birthday on Jan. 11-12, 2008 with an array of Irish, Scottish and Cape Breton music and dance.  More than 100 performers, a mix of established artists and new or emerging acts – including fiddlers, flutists, accordionists, guitarists, singers and other musicians, as well as dancers — who reside in the Boston area or are active in its Celtic music community, will be featured.  A tribute to the 1976 release by Paul Brady and Andy Irvine, regarded as one of the landmark albums of the Celtic music revival, and an “Open Stage” for both individuals and bands also are on the docket.

A month earlier, a festival sneak preview is slated for Monday night, Dec. 10,  at Club Passim in Harvard Square, across the Charles River, in Cambridge.  The preview concert will feature The Burren Youth (a group of high school students who frequently play at the Somerville Irish pub of that name’s Sunday afternoon session), The New Tyme Sisters (a duo who fuse Celtic and Appalachian sounds), Tina Lech and Ted Davis (an Irish fiddle and guitar duo), and Cliff and Kira McGann (English and Gaelic singers). 

Besides playing host to the preview, Club Passim will be home to a both a Friday night  concert on Jan. 11 and a Day Fest on Saturday, Jan. 12, for which doors open at 10 a.m.   Urban Celidhs will take place there, as well as at Springstep in Medford, and Cambridge’s First Parish Church on Friday night, while Saturday night’s finale concert also takes place at the church.

For those who might question the notion of staging such a festival during the wintertime, festival organizers maintain that is precisely why they do it then.  “We need something to look forward to,” proclaims the BCMFest website (www.bcmfest.com).  “Seriously, the decision was initially made because it tends to be a slow time for touring musicians, so a lot of folks tend to be in town.  And there is something about bad weather that helps to make good music.”