Thinking back to 1990, when NPR first partnered with me in presenting The Thistle & Shamrock®, I remember talking about the show as an open doorway to a world of evolving Celtic music traditions for public radio listeners. The legacies of Scotland and Ireland's transatlantic crossings provided a focal point for the festival, of which I was proud to be a partner. In 2019, Carnegie Hall's landmark festival Migrations: The Making of America showed how American music has and continues to develop through the movement of people who are displaced by varying circumstances. America's interwoven culture is always at its most enthralling and enriching when we hear every voice and all its textures are equally visible. The awareness of musical roots connecting Appalachian and Old Time music to the British Isles and Ireland honors fully the diversity of influences from which it grew. Much has changed since 1983, when I first took to the national airwaves. Hearing Alan Stivell, the celebrated Breton harper and multi-instrumentalist, first inspired The Thistle & Shamrock® host Fiona Ritchie to investigate Celtic musical traditions and bring them to radio.
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