The Beginning
In 2013, Bill and I celebrated our 30th anniversary and we decided to throw ourselves a party. We love Celtic music and thought it would be fun to have a Celtic music band play. We reached out to Cantrip and were lucky enough to be able to book them for our celebration. Little did we know that would be the beginning of our house concert series.
Fast forward 10 years and we’re approaching our 40th(!) anniversary and the 10th anniversary of the Brownington Ceilidh Club (BCC). Once again, we’re having a party – this time with multiple bands – a kind of mini Celtic music festival on Aug. 12 beginning at 3:00pm. Between now and then we’ll be sharing stories of the BCC and invite any of you who have stories about our house concerts to share them as well.
Our Name
When we first began having house concerts we invited friends and did some promoting on Facebook. Some of the musicians who played at our place said we needed a name for our series. We kicked around some ideas, but never really settled on anything. One month, when promoting an upcoming concert, I noticed that the band that was coming (I believe it was Cantrip) announced on their website that they’d be playing at the Brownington Ceilidh Club. Bill and I looked at each other and said, “I think that’s us!” And so we became the Brownington Ceilidh Club.
Construction
Our first couple of concerts were held in our dining room with half of the audience sitting behind the breakfast bar in the kitchen – definitely less than ideal. We then tried having a concert on our porch, but that also had many challenges. At the time, our family room was about a third the size it is now, with the rest of the space just being old sheds. After a few concerts where people were squeezed into that small area, we started dreaming about a bigger space and in early spring of 2016 we started knocking down walls. Our goal was to have the room completed by August in time for our next concert. Bill and I (mostly Bill) were doing the work by ourselves and by mid-May it was obvious that Bill couldn’t continue to work full-time and get the project completed.
Bill retired at the end of June that year and went to town on rebuilding. Luckily we had lots of help from our boys and their friends. A couple of days before the concert they were still working on putting the floor in and Ian (our youngest son) ended up taking time off from work to come over from Burlington and help get it finished. Although the walls were bare and the trim wasn’t done, we had a great concert in the new space. This project was our first inkling that the Brownington Ceilidh Club was a place where community was being built – literally as well as figuratively.
The Sign
Shortly after we became known as the Brownington Ceilidh Club, a group of our friends got together and surprised us with a lovely sign to hang in our “concert room”. It was the first item we hung on the walls in our newly renovated space, and has been used by many folks to take special photos.
Sketches
In addition to the “Brownington Ceilidh Club” sign, other items hanging on the walls in our concert space include some wonderful drawings by France Prevost. France brings along her sketch pad whenever she comes to a concert, and sketches the musicians. She puts the finishing touches on the sketches when she gets home and then shares them with us to frame and hang on the walls. These drawings are such a nice addition to the decor and another example of how we’re building community through traditional music.
The Keezer
During the early years of the BCC, our son Ian and his friends Avery and Aaron Williams had been experimenting with home brewing and often had bottles of beer, cider, or mead available for tasting at our concerts. In 2017 the guys decided to kick it up a notch and built a keezer so we could have homebrew on tap. They’ve been great at keeping us supplied and for most of our concerts there is a nice selection of beverages available.
McDonald Stage
Musicians hear about us by word of mouth and for the first few years the groups that played at the BCC had the same musician playing with various other people. It became a standing joke that Eric McDonald would be playing with yet another group of which he was a member. After a show by the Katie McNally Trio in 2018 we mentioned that this was one of the few concerts scheduled where Eric was not part of the group. Katie decided that this couldn’t go unrecognized and she ordered a plaque proclaiming the spot where bands sit as “McDonald Stage”. The next time Eric played at the BCC we unveiled the plaque. Lest he get a big head, his bandmates like to point out that the stage is on the same level as the rest of the room.
The Donation Jar
If you’ve been to one of our concerts, you may have noticed a beautiful pottery donation jar on the table as you enter. This jar was made for us by our friend, Joan Sbarra, who gifted it to the BCC in 2018. It’s the perfect place to collect admission donations, all of which go to the musicians.
Celebrating 5 Years – Pint Glasses
As word spread about our house concert series, more and more musicians began reaching out asking for a place on our schedule, and our audience grew. It was a surprise to us that by 2018 we’d been hosting concerts for 5 years. People started to suggest that we needed to mark the occasion with something special. After lots of discussion, we settled on BCC pint glasses and our daughter-in-law, Liz, went to work designing and ordering them for us. Cantrip was scheduled to perform in August that year and since they were the first group to play for us, it seemed only fitting that we celebrate 5 years during that concert. Everyone who attended received a pint glass and the remaining glasses now sit near the keezer and are used to serve homebrew.
The Website
During the 2018 concert season we had a number of people mention that they weren’t on social media and they wished they’d known about our concerts earlier. The suggestion was made that we should have a website so people could find us and get more information. We enlisted the help of our youngest son, Ian, and he designed a website for us. At the beginning of 2019 the browningtonceilidhclub.com site went live and has proven to be another way for people to find us.
Katie’s Kooler
When Ian and Liz got married in 2018, Cantrip played at their wedding. During the reception, we were talking with Eric about future plans for the BCC. I mentioned that we’d like to get some kind of beverage cooler so we didn’t have to keep buying ice for coolers. Shortly after that, a beverage cooler was delivered to our house as a gift from Cantrip. There were a couple of stickers on the cooler: one that said “Katie’s Kooler” and another one that said “Drink like a McNally”. Remember the story about the plaque for the McDonald Stage that Katie provided? These stickers were Eric’s response to that plaque 😀. When Katie played at the BCC in April 2019 we had a dedication ceremony for the cooler.
BCC Water Bottles
In addition to home-brew and non-alcoholic beverages we always like to have water available for folks during concerts. In the beginning we were purchasing bottled water, which was not only expensive but also generated a lot of plastic waste. In 2019 we read a story about Club Passim in Cambridge doing away with plastic bottles of water and instead offering reusable water bottles, and we were inspired to do the same. Our tap water is great for drinking, so we purchased a bunch of reusable water bottles with the BCC logo on them. We’ll be raffling off some of these water bottles during our mini-festival on Aug. 12.
Tap Handles
When the keezer was built in 2017, the guys used plain dowels for the tap handles. In 2019 our friend Andre Williams made some gorgeous tap handles with a Celtic design on them and gifted them to the BCC. Be sure to check them out the next time you come to a concert. Another example of how the BCC is truly a community effort.
COVID-19
March 2020 – The COVID-19 pandemic struck and the world shut down. We canceled all of our concerts for the remainder of the year. After the initial shock, our thoughts turned to our musician friends and we worried about how they would survive and what we could do to help. Eric McDonald reached out and offered to organize a series of online concerts that we would broadcast from our Facebook page. Although nowhere near as good as in-person concerts, they were at least something we could do as we tried to keep the spirit of the BCC alive and to support our musician friends.
As the pandemic stretched on we continued to offer virtual concerts through the first half of 2021. Musicians who were featured included:
- Eric McDonald
- Louise Bichan and Ethan Setiawan
- Katie McNally and Neil Pearlman
- Dan Houghton and Rachel Clemente
- Alex Cumming
- Will Woodson and Caitlin Finley
- Jeremiah McLane
- Pete’s Posse
- Cantrip
- Bellwether
- Kalos
- Jordan Tyrell-Wysocki
- Dominique Dodge and Emerald Rae
Kalos Retreat
In November of 2021 we were excited to offer the BCC to Kalos as a space for a band retreat. After playing a concert on a Sunday afternoon, the band set to work on a new album and we were given a birds-eye view of the creative process during the next week. The days were filled with music and laughter – what a treat for us!
When the album, Headland, was released in early 2023 we were honored to see that it included a tune called Brownington Ceilidh Club.
Lost and Found
Over the years the BCC has amassed quite a collection of items left behind after our concerts. Items we’ve found over the years include: keys, underwear, socks, winter jacket, air pods, charger cables, hot sauce, microphone stand, toiletry kit, travel mug, dishes and silverware, potholders, deodorant, shampoo, scarf, hat sweatshirt, hot sauce (again), towels….
Some of these we’ve been able to return to their owners and other items remain unclaimed. We’ll have a lost and found table at our mini-festival on Aug. 12 in hopes that the remaining items will go home with their owners.
YTV and Pete
The groups who play at the BCC are almost exclusively professional musicians who are on tour, often for an album release. In 2023, Mark Sustic, from Young Tradition Vermont (YTV), approached us to ask if we’d be willing to have the Young Tradition VT Youth Commission play for us. We weren’t sure how our audience would feel about coming to hear kids play, but anyone who knows us knows we’re all about supporting youth so we agreed. Audience members told us after the concert that they weren’t expecting much, but wanted to support us so they came anyway and were blown away by these young adults. It was a fabulous concert and I just know we’ll be hearing more from these talented musicians.
Side note: I’m pretty sure that Pete Sutherland, amazing musician and overall extraordinary human being who passed away in November 2022, connected YTV with us before he passed. One of the last things Pete said to us was, “Keep on keeping on”, and that’s what we’re trying to do. We miss you Pete!
Bar Stools
One of the problems with having the stage on the same level as the audience seating is that it’s difficult for people in the back row to see the performers. Once again the BCC community came through for us. In the spring of 2023 Lauren and Lisa Grader-Fox donated four bar stools that we could put against the back wall so people in the back would have a place to sit and still be able to see. Thank-you Lauren and Lisa!
Musicians
People often ask us how we find musicians to play at the BCC and the short answer is that musicians find us. Generally by November of each year our schedule for the following year is mostly set. Occasionally we have musicians who are looking to fill a hole in their tour schedule reach out at the last minute and we try to accommodate them if possible. We’ve had musicians come from Canada, Scotland, and England as well as all over the US
Mini-Festival 2023
As 2023 approached we began thinking about how we were going to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the BCC (and our 40th wedding anniversary). Someone suggested we have a festival and invite some of the bands who had played at our place over the years. We didn’t know anything about hosting a festival, but once again the amazing BCC community stepped up. People volunteered to help with things we didn’t even know we needed (an emcee, a stage manager, decorations, etc.). We considered many different food options and ultimately decided a potluck would fit perfectly with our motto of “building community through traditional music”.
The 2023 mini-fest was attended by about 100 people which was a lot more than we had anticipated. As people left at the end of the evening we kept hearing, “Can’t wait til the next one!” We originally thought this was a one-time thing to celebrate 10 years but then began wondering if we could actually do it again. We decided that maybe in 2 years we’d talk about another one.
Mini-Festival 2025
In the fall of 2024, we were visiting with Eric McDonald (of McDonald stage fame) and his wife Sarah Kemerer and they said, “It’s been 2 years, time to start planning the next festival.” And just like that mini-fest 2025 started coming together. We had learned a lot from our first festival, not the least of which was that we needed help paying for everything. We reached out to the BCC community and 16 folks (plus 3 businesses) stepped up with generous donations. We also knew that we needed more help on the day of the festival and once again we reached out and 11 people volunteered to take shifts to help with things like parking, admissions, raffle tickets, etc. Our kids (plus Eric and Sarah) all took the day off on Friday to help with set-up.
The weather was absolutely beautiful – we couldn’t have asked for better – and about 200 people attended the festival this time, which wildly exceeded our expectations. The potluck was epic, the music amazing, and the sense of community outstanding. Months later we are still smiling and we’re already dreaming about the next festival.
BCC Pottery
As we were planning the 2025 festival, Roseanna Cyr from Hopewell Studio reached out and offered to create some BCC pottery to sell at the festival with a portion of the proceeds going to the BCC. The mugs, tumblers, tankards, and ornaments she made are works of art, and are another example of community members stepping up to build community through traditional music. We will continue to have these items available for purchase at our concerts as long as supplies last.
Thank-you!!
The Brownington Ceilidh Club wouldn’t be possible without our loyal audience members. Whether you come to almost every concert, come to hear a favorite musician/group or are just discovering us, we’re truly grateful for the support of each and every one of you. You all make it possible for us to fulfill our mission of “Building Community Through Traditional Music” – thank-you!
Brownington Ceilidh Club 