Musician Geoffrey Castle performs Saturday
MOSES LAKE — Musician Geoffrey Castle will bring a mix of Christmas music and Irish dance to the Wallenstien Theater this weekend. The curtain goes up on “A Celtic Christmas” at 7 p.m. Saturday. The concert is sponsored by Columbia Basin Allied Arts.
It’s Castle’s second appearance in Moses Lake; he brought his Christmas show to town in 2012. The concert is a mix of music and dance, with Castle and his five-piece band accompanied by the Seattle Irish Dance Company.
Castle described it as “a Celtic rock show with amazing dancers,” featuring Christmas music that has been performed for centuries. “If the song was written before electricity, it will probably fit in my show,” he said. The music was written “200, 500, 800 years ago.”
Castle said Celtic music always appealed to him, back to his days touring with his band “The Guameri Underground.” The band included Irish music in its repertoire, he said, and when the band started playing the Celtic tunes, “I’d notice that’s when the party would start. People loved it.” He decided to focus on the Celtic sound as a result, interpreting it with the help of his extensive background in rock, blues and jazz, among others, he said.
And the music is seriously cool as well as traditional, he said. “The hardest-rocking song we do in the show, “Salva Nos,” is a Gregorian chant that’s over 800 years old.” Castle said he decided to focus on music written before what he considers excessive commercialzation of the holiday.
“The truth is, I really love these songs and we only get to play them one month out of the year,” he wrote.
All band members (Steve Boyce, T.J.Morris and Mark Cardenas) are from the Pacific Northwest, he said. The performance will feature Irish tenor Dan Connolly and vocalist Emily McIntosh.
“Music and dance are universal languages. It’s all about conveying emotion and energy.”
Ticket prices depend on seat location and can be purchased on the CBAA website.
Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.