Welcome

Thank you for attending the Baddeck Gathering Ceilidh!

This page has been created exclusively for those who have attended one of our regular Wednesday night performances at St. Michael’s Parish Hall in Baddeck, Nova Scotia.
If you’re looking for more information on Dara Smith-MacDonald, Adam Young, or the Baddeck Gathering Ceilidhs, you’re in the right place.

Dara and Adam have recorded two albums together, and each has a solo album as well. Dara’s CD Connections was released in March 2011, while Adam’s double album Yearbook came out in June 2021. Their collaborative albums include The Lake Sessions (2017) and Island (2019). A third live album is in the works—please check back in 2025 for more information about this new project!

Below you will find direct links to various streaming services to Dara and Adam’s music, as well as information on how to purchase the few items for which we still have a physical inventory: Island on CD and the Yearbook tunebook, featuring 189 original compositions.

YouTube: Dara Smith-MacDonald, Adam Young play MSR set, posted by Frank MacGillivray

Our Music

Biographies

Dara Smith-MacDonald

Dara Smith-MacDonald was born and raised in Antigonish, but has strong family roots in Inverness. She now resides in Port Hawkesbury. She has been playing the fiddle for over 25 years with a style that is strong, lively and traditional. She has played for concerts, ceilidhs, and dances throughout Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Ontario, the United States, and Scotland. She has performed for the Antigonish Highland Games, the Acoustic Roots Festival, KitchenFest, Celtic Colours, and the Royal Edinburgh Tattoo. Dara is a musical director and a board member of the Cape Breton Fiddlers Association.

Adam Young

For the past two decades, Adam Young has been bringing his particular style of Cape Breton piano accompaniment to audiences around the world. He plays regularly at concerts, ceilidhs, square dances, and sessions throughout Cape Breton, and has showcased his talents across Canada, the U.S., the U.K., and Australia, with the likes of Colin Grant, Còig, and Dara Smith-MacDonald. Adam’s double album and tunebook, Yearbook, garnered an East Coast Music Award and a Canadian Folk Music Award nomination.

Now Streaming…

Our music is available on all your favourite streaming services. Here are links to some of the most popular options:

Spotify

Apple Music

Tidal

YouTube Music

Bandcamp

Buy What’s Left

We are currently sold out of most of the products we regularly feature in the online store and offer for purchase at the ceilidh. We have two items left for sale: Island on CD and Yearbook in its physical book form.
But! If you’d rather download the music as opposed to stream online, we also have digital versions of three of our albums, as well as Adam’s tunebook.

✺ Frequently asked questions ✺

  • They're the same instrument. What it's called is largely dependent upon the style of music being played. Classical players play a violin; traditional/folk/bluegrass players play a fiddle.
    Adam often jokes that you can't spill whiskey on a violin, and Dara often tells him that if he spills whiskey on her fiddle, he's a dead man.

  • A jig is a tune in 6/8 time, meaning there are six beats per measure (and counted in two groups of three). If you can say "jiggety jiggety jig", it's a jig.

    A reel is a tune in 2/4 or 4/4 time, which means it's counted in either two or four (usually four). If you're listening to it and you can rhythmically say "This is how a reel goes", it's probably a reel. Reels are the fastest tunes in the Celtic style.

  • We aren't exactly sure, but we met sometime in the early 2000s and started playing music together shortly after that. We know we met at a square dance in West Mabou, but can't remember if one of us was playing or if we were just there listening to the music (and dancing).
    So... a bit over 20 years.

  • In addition to jigs and reels (mentioned in a previous question), we play other types of tunes, too:
    - Airs or slow airs, which can be written in any time signature but which are played slowly and melodically
    - Marches can be written in a number of different meters (4/4, 12/8, 6/8, 9/8), but with a strong down beat where you could easily picture a band or army marching along. It's steady and not rushed...almost stately.
    - Strathspeys are graceful dance tunes written in 4/4 time, and containing the “Scotch snap,” a two note short-long (or long-short) figure that is equivalent to a 16th note followed by a dotted 8th note. They are the most unique tune to Scotland, although we play them in the Cape Breton tradition as well—and they sound a lot different on this side of the pond!

    We also have waltzes, hornpipes, and polkas, but they are a lot less common.

  • Although it is about equivalent to a full-time job, neither Dara nor Adam plays music full-time for employment. Dara is a school administrator (vice principal) and Adam works in public relations and communications for Parks Canada (Canada's equivalent of the US National Parks Service).

  • Dara began her musical journey by playing classical music with a school orchestra and was encouraged to start playing the traditional/Celtic style by one of her classmates. She fell in love with that style of music and hasn't looked back.

    Although he'd been playing hte piano since the age of 5, Adam was in his 20s when he shifted his focus to the traditional style. He was invited to direct a music/comedy revue at a local theatre and had to learn the style while putting that show together. Like Dara, he fell in love with the music and has focussed almost exclusively on the style ever since.

    Both Dara and Adam have family connections to the music. Both have grandparents who played the fiddle, and both have been gifted their grandparents' instrument. Dara's sister plays the bagpipes competitively with a pipe and drum band. Adam's cousin is a well-known piano player, and his mother and sister are both stepdancers.

The Lake Sessions
Tidal streaming link coming soon...