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November 14,
2006
Aeolian Hall to become Cape Breton
kitchen party
By James Reaney, The London Free Press
If Buddy
MacDonald has anything to say about it, there's going to be
a Cape Breton kitchen party at Aeolian Hall Nov. 16.
"We're
going to make the Cape Bretoners homesick," MacDonald says
of Cape Breton Live, a touring show with music, dance, songs
and comedy.
As the
host, MacDonald starts at the centre of things. Among those
dropping by as the show builds are fiddler and stepdancer
Andrea Beaton, fiddler and pianist Troy MacGillivray,
fiddler and stepdancer Glenn Graham, fiddler and pianist
Howie MacDonald and singer and stepdancer Kate Quinn.
"It's a
high-energy, fun sort of evening," Buddy MacDonald says.
His career
as a singer- songwriter and entertainer began more than 25
years ago. He grew up on the Northern Shores of Cape Breton
Island. Much of his song writing is still influenced by the
traditional styles he knew as a youngster.
MacDonald
has already been in touch with many London-region friends
who have ties to their Nova Scotia home. They are a few of
the thousands of former Cape Breton residents who have moved
to other parts of Canada.
"I don't
know if there could be an accurate count. If every Cape
Bretoner came back, the island would sink," he says, quoting
an old saying about the exodus.
When it's
suggested MacGillivray, a fiddle star on the tour, must in
some way be connected with old McGillivray Township -- now
part of North Middlesex in Middlesex County -- MacDonald
says it's probably the case, somehow or other.
"He'll be
very pleased," he says of the fiddler's likely response.
Cape
Breton Live on Tour is the live, cross-Canada version of a
weekly Internet broadcast presented by Natalie MacMaster and
Donnell Leahy, the most famous couple in the island's music.
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