IMBOLC International Music Festival
Address: | Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin 37 Great James Street Northern Ireland DERRY County Londonderry |
Telephone: | 028 7126 4132 |
Website: | www.imbolcfestival.com/ |
DERRY// 26th January - 9th February 2020
In the few short years of its existence, IMBOLC International Music Festival has grown to become one of Ireland’s leading folk and world music festivals. Whilst still firmly rooted in the musical cultures of this island, the festival has grown in depth and breadth and now encompasses music genres ranging from folk, traditional and roots, to jazz, contemporary and world music.
IMBOLC Festival is a vibrant, innovative and energetic organisation and contributes to many aspects of the cultural life of the city and region, enhancing the lives of people, not just locally but also further afield.
We exist to:
- Present a diverse range of performances from artists from Ireland and world-wide;
- Offer high-quality cultural activities to as wide a range of people as possible, at affordable prices;
- Offer a showcase for Ireland’s rich culture;
- Encourage and provide opportunities for everyone to engage with and participate in the arts, irrespective of means and ability;
- Contribute to the growth of the cultural tourism sector in the city and wider region.
UPCOMING EVENTS
COMING HOME: ART AND THE GREAT HUNGER

Date: 18 Jan 2019–17 Mar 2019
Location: An tSeaneaglais (Glassworks)
From January 18th to March 17 2019, An tSeaneaglais (Glassworks) will host "Coming Home: Art and The Great Hunger", the world's largest collection of famine-related art.
Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut, is sending its acclaimed art collection to Ireland in 2018-19, where they have been on exhibit at Dublin Castle and Skibbereen—diametric epicenters of the Great Famine—and will be on display at An tSeaneaglais (Glassworks) in Derry in 2019.
The museum’s collection, the only one of its kind in the world, constitutes an incomparable direct link to the past of almost 6.5 million Irish and 40 million Irish-American people.
SYMBIO // STRUNG
Date: 29 Jan 2019
Time: 20:00
Location: Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin
Price: £10
TRANSATLANTIC SESSIONS

Date: 9 Feb 2019
Time: 20:00
Location: Millennium Forum
Price: £33
Nearly a quarter-century on from the original Transatlantic Sessions TV series, the live version is securely ensconced as an annual highlight not only of each year’s Celtic Connections, but—thanks to its now-annual post-festival tour—of many fans’ musical calendar throughout the UK. As No Depression put it in their 2018 review (citing co-musical director Aly Bain), “the ‘special relationship’ across the Pond has come under scrutiny recently, but in the context of this music it remains as strong as ever.”
Among a generation-spanning array of guests for 2019, Nashville-based New Yorker Gretchen Peters recently followed up her double AMA Award-winning Blackbirds with more rave reviews for Dancing With the Beast, whose characteristically vivid, eloquent story-songs address post-Trump and #MeToo themes. It’s always a treat to welcome back the great Tim O’Brien, whose own new release, Where the River Meets the Road, covers songwriters from his native West Virginia including Doc Williams, Larry Groce, Bill Withers and the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers.
