Julia Lane has loved, sung, researched and created folk music since childhood. Growning up in New England, she studied music theory and took guitar lessons from a lutenist specializing in Elizabethan songs and flamenco. She became active in madrigal and Renaissance music groups, played as a soloist and provided music for a children's theater group. Show/Hide

After graduating from Phillips Exeter Academy, her interest in English and Scottish folk music and lore led her to study in Oxford, England. She continues to conduct in-depth research into the social history and folkways of the Celtic lands and her native New England. Utilizing the power of music in conveying a story, she has created multimedia programs of history and myth with both traditional and original music.

Julia has studied piano, classical and flamenco guitar, and voice. A self-taught player of the Celtic folk harp, her unique style has won three international competitions. She is also a fine vocalist whose voice has been compared favorably with Loreena McKennitt, Jean Redpath and Judy Collins.

Julia enjoys researching dusty tomes for obscure information. She also engages in "full contact" gardening at her home on the Maine coast.

Fred Gosbee has collected and performed folk music for over thirty years. As a child in Central Maine, he heard his older relatives singing the old woodsmen's songs and playing fiddle and accordion. At the University of Maine, he was inspired by the folk music he heard in a college folklore class with Dr. Sandy Ives who became Fred's advisor. Dr. Ives became influential in Fred's awareness and appreciation for his own heritage of folk music. Show/Hide

Having had wide experience with community theater, both onstage and in production, Fred combined his theatrical experience with his knowledge of folk music when he arranged, composed, and performed new incidental music for a production of A Spoon River Anthology. The resulting sound tapestry included 56 pieces of music performed live for each show.

Fred has continued to write original songs in the traditional style, celebrating the humor and humanity of ordinary people. His works have since been recorded by other artists and have garnered him invitations to international music festivals.

He currently sings and plays classic and 12-string guitar, viola, fiddle, and Irish flute and tin whistle and enjoys experimenting with both traditional and ethnic instruments. (He has been known to elicit music from a squash vine). Fred is also a skilled technician and woodworker. When he is not touring, he engineers and produces recordings as well as designing and building Celtic harps and other instruments.

Castlebay Show/Hide

has toured the eastern US, Maritime Provences, Great Britian and Ireland. Their first tours of Scotland in the early 1990's were organized by the traditional singer, Jack Beck. Over the years they have met and collaborated with many fine Scottish musicians including members of Heritage, Geordie MacIntyre, Alison MacMoreland, Stravaig, and the late Lionell McClelland. While much of the Scottish music they perform is traditional, they have also been moved to write major pieces about places they have visited including the Isle of Skye and Dumfries & Galloway.

Quotes Show/Hide

"Thank you so much for coming to the Ridgefield Library to share the fascinating life and work of Robert Burns with our audience. What a wonderful evening of music, poetry, and song. You can't get a better combination than that!

Everyone I spoke to afterwards really enjoyed the show, especially the Scottish contingent. I think you probably made a lot of people yearn for the "old country!"

Good luck and thanks again,

Leslie Lambton
Adult Programming Director
The Ridgefield Library and Historical Association
Ridgefield, Connecticut

Katherine Chansky
Crandall Public Library
Glens Falls, NY

We have expanded our tour schedule to include the entire eastern seaboard of the U.S. and have made annual tours of the United Kingdom since 1993. We have also performed in the Los Angeles area, Durango, Colorado, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia.

We perform at festivals, concert series, and folk clubs. We also teach cultural history through music in schools, libraries, museums, and elder hostels. Since 1990 we have performed at over 450 weddings and innumerable other private functions.
Castlebay performs at many festivals in the eastern U.S. and Great Britian. Here is a partial list:

Inspired by a trip to the Isle of Skye in Scotland in 1993, Julia & Fred composed a suite of tunes called The Skye Suite. Performed by an ensemble of violin, viola, cello and harp, the 15-minute work was presented with slides of the Isle of Skye. This piece was performed several times at various locations in Maine and Massachusetts.

In 1998 Castlebay was comissioned by the Dumfries and Galloway Arts Association, in Scotland, to write music for "Sang O the Solway", a cultural celebration of the region. This two-hour piece was performed several times throughout southwestern Scotland, culminating in a concert at the Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow.

Julia spent five years researching an historic shipwreck and has written a staged dramatization with music called The Grand Design. This was premiered in 2006 in Damariscotta and has since been presented several times since the initial run in locales as far as Grand Manan Island, NB, and Anderson, SC. This multi-media production includes five musicians, a cast of 15-25 actors, and projected imagesimages. Recordings Show/Hide

Castlebay produced 18 CDs between 1994 and 2009. In addition to their own recordings the members of Castlebay have performed on other artists' recordings on both sides of the Atlantic. Included in their body of work is a six-part series of Celtic instrumental music, four holiday harp CDs, a winter humor CD, two CDs of original work (mostly songs), a live concert CD, and three CDs of traditional songs.

Among this body of work are two CDs which feature the songs of Robert Burns.

Ae Fond Kiss - Romantic Scottish Songs has seven track of Burns compositions. Included are My Luv Is Like a Red, Red Rose, Ae Waukin' O, Song Composed in August, and the title track, described as the most poignant love song ever written.

Rantin' Rovin' Robin - Songs of Robert Burns is entirely devoted to Scotland's Bardie. This was released in 2009 on the 250th anniversary of his birth. In addition to the title track are Green Grow the Rashes, Of All the Airts, Ye Banks and Braes, The Deil's Awa' wi' the Exciseman, Willie Brewed a Peck O' Maut, A Man's a Man, and Auld Lang Syne.

Concert Videos
Flagler College Auditorium, February, 2006

The Lighthouse on the Shore