Celtic Music in Italy

person or by phone, mostly for the difficulty of getting in touch with the artists. But apart from that I think that email is great for these things: it allows a better comprehension for me (...well, my listening comprehension isn't perfect...); and in this way the musicians can give answers in a more "meditated" way. Sometimes it happened that a musician emailed twice to correct his previous answers...

SG: How much of a "buzz" do you get meeting / writing to these heroes of Celtic music? (please give some anecdotes if possible)

ADP: Of course you get this "buzz" much more when you meet the artists...it happened in two cases, with Paddy Keenan (ex Bothy Band) and with Máirtín O'Connor (ex-Riverdance) during their visits here in Sicily for some concerts. Great musicians, but also wonderful persons. It's been very easy to get in touch with them, and we had a very good time here with them. Like most Irish, they love good food, sea and sunshine...and we in Sicily have plenty of these ingredients! In both cases I could even say that we came to a very friendly relationship. We still email each other quite often. They hope to come back soon to Sicily, and we hope the same way...

Emails by contrast are rather "cold"...it's difficult to build strong relations via email...but it happened at least some times, for example with Virginia Keane, the wife-manager of Seán Keane, who I met with my family last summer in Galway, Eire, and with Declan Askin, the guitar player with the Irish band Céide.

SG: And how is the magazine doing? Are sales good enough to ensure a long future?

ADP: Well, after all Celtic music remains a "niche-phenomenon", at least in Italy. Of course we cannot expect mass-sales, but I think we have reached a good compromise of sales that could, hopefully, guarantee a long future to the magazine. One big problem is the language barrier: as far as I know, there aren't many other monthly magazines specialized in Celtic (or Irish) music that offer monthly tracks from the most recent CD releases, but of course, unless you can read Italian, surely you will not be very moved to buy Keltika...

SG: The March issue featured St.Patrick's Day special in conjunction with Sean Laffey, the editor of Irish Music Magazine and had a tremendous line-up of Irish talent on the cover cd. What plans do you have for

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