SoMD Celtic Festival Harp Competition is soon!

28 April 2012 marks the 34^th year of the Southern Maryland Celtic Society Festival Saturday, in beautiful Calvert County Maryland. This is the oldest Celtic celebration in Maryland!

In just two month's we will have a Scottish Harp Society Sanctioned Competition (rules are available at http://www.shsa.org). Our judge will be the wonderful Sue Richards (http://www.suerichards.net/). And we are fortunate to again have the Virginia Harp Center as our Prizes Sponsor this year.

I hope you’ll come to the competition, whether you compete or not. If you want to compete you’ll find the online registration (there will be no onsite registration) on cssm.org/harp. And if competition performance is not for you, come out anyway – we always need volunteers (who get complimentary admission to the games – just leave me a comment if you are interested).

The festival is scheduled on the last Saturday of April every year from 10 AM to 6 PM Rain or Shine.  Look for more information on www.cssm.org.  While the park will allow pets, it would be less stressful for them if you left your furry friends at home.

Our Festival was chosen in 2000 by Congressman Steny Hoyer to represent Southern Maryland in the national "Local Legacy" project of the Library of Congress’ Bicentennial celebration.  The Southern Maryland Celtic Festival and Highland Gathering highlights the heritage of the Breton, Cornish, Irish, Manx, Scots, and Welsh.

The Festival is centrally located to the mid-Atlantic.  Our Harp competition has had competitors from as far as North Carolina to the south, Michigan to the west, and upstate New York to the north – and I hope this year will be no exception. The Festival is held at Jefferson Patterson state park with the field overlooking the Patuxent River which is stunning and delightful – a lovely location for a games.

When final details, like the time, have been updated  for 2012, I'll post them here.