The Celtic Connections festival started in 1994 in Glasgow, Scotland, and has since been held every January. Featuring over 300 concerts, ceilidhs, talks, free events, late night sessions and workshops, the festival focuses on the roots of traditional Scottish music and also features international folk, roots and world music artists. The festival is produced and promoted by Glasgow Life. Donald Shaw, a founding member of Capercaillie, was appointed Celtic Connections Artistic Director in 2006. At the core of the festival is the Education Programme, which sees thousands of school children attend free morning concerts experiencing live music ranging from Burns to spiritual and blues. Celtic Connections also continues to foster new and young talent through its Young Tradition and New Voices series of concerts, and through the Danny Kyle Open Stage competition. Every night of the festival, once the concerts are over, the late-night Celtic Connections Festival Club runs through to the small hours of the morning. No programme is announced in advance, and the club is renowned for one-off collaborations between musicians appearing at the festival. History The Celtic Connections festival was founded by Colin Hynd in 1994 to fill a scheduling gap in the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall's (GRCH) normally quiet post-Christmas period. Hynd's strategy was to create a wide-ranging festival spanning from traditional music to more youth-oriented music, and to promote it through BBC Radio Scotland. He succeeded in attracting audiences of 33,000. In that first year all the events took place within the GRCH building, and did not include workshops. The second festival in 1995 was again centered in the GRCH, and also took in the ballroom of the Hospitality Inn (later the Glasgow Thistle) nearby. 130 events were scheduled, involving more than 100 acts, over seventeen days, with over 50,000 admissions. Folk Roots noted the appearance of Alan Stivell and reunion gigs for both Moving Hearts and Relativity, as well as emerging talents Cara Dillon and Shooglenifty, and there was praise for the organisation and staff of the Concert Hall. In 1996 the third festival opened out to venues beyond the Concert Hall, including Adelaide's (part of the Baptist Church on Bath Street) and the Barony Hall, plus a self-contained Cajun festival at the Tramway, and a late-night club. In an event which would become a hallmark of the festival, folk and classical music met with a performance by Aly Bain with the Scottish Ensemble.