The 12th annual Summer BCMFest, which takes place July 5 in Club Passim, will once again feature a spectrum of Celtic and Celtic-influenced sounds and traditions – from Cape Breton to Irish to Scottish and more – presented by Greater Boston-area performers across the generations.

The festival will include a free concert from 2 to 4 p.m. with the Carroll Sisters Trio and the debut of Erin Shea Hogan & The Kind Strangers, followed by a ticketed evening show at 7 p.m. featuring the Isabel Oliart Band, Torrin Ryan and Amy Law, and Leland Martin with Janine Randall and Eamon Sefton. 

Summer BCMFest is the warm-weather version of the Boston Celtic Music Fest (BCMFest), a multi-day festival held in the winter to celebrate the richness and diversity of Irish, Scottish, Cape Breton, and other Celtic music and dance in the Greater Boston area. BCMFest is a program of Cambridge-based non-profit Passim, which supports a vibrant music community through Club Passim, a music school, artist grants, and outreach initiatives. 

Here’s a closer look at the 2026 Summer BCMFest line-up:

•The Carroll Sisters Trio—Emilie and Norah Carroll are fiddle-playing siblings from Connecticut who have been regulars at many Celtic events around Boston, including BCMFest, for years. They are joined by multi-instrumentalist Sammy Wetstein, a talented, in-demand performer in his own right (he’ll also be playing with the Isabel Oliart Band in the evening concert). The college-age sisters began playing Irish-style fiddle around the time they entered elementary school, and participated in Irish music competitions – notably the Mid-Atlantic Fleadh Cheoil, where they both qualified for the All-Ireland Fleadh in 2018. In more recent years, the Carrolls began shifting their attention to Scottish and Cape Breton music, as well as composing their own tunes, as reflected in their second album, last year’s “Radiance.” 

•Erin Shea Hogan & The Kind Strangers—A Wisconsin-born-and-raised multi-genre vocalist, educator, and community organizer, Hogan had formal vocal training in the classical tradition, but has continually partnered and performed across many genres from baroque music to sacred music, jazz fusion, world music, and folk music of Celtic regions and the Americas (with Paul Brady, Eva Cassidy, Keith Murphy, June Tabor, and Sandy Denny among her many influences). She has been part of numerous local collaborations, notably as a member of the vocal quartet Forsyth – which appeared at Summer BCMFest last year and this past January’s festival – as well as the Adam Hendey Band and Elias Cardoso Band. Her new project with the Kind Strangers (Hendey, Ike Sturm, and Steven Manwaring) centers on intimate, imaginative reworkings of traditional and contemporary ballads.

•The Isabel Oliart Band—Oliart, who grew up in the Boston area and holds degrees from New England Conservatory and Boston University, has played at BCMFest, The Burren and, most recently, as part of Club Passim’s Memorial Day Campfire festival; she’s also appeared on the “A Celtic Sojourn” and “Says You” radio shows. A winner of competitions for Scottish fiddle and Scottish-style tune writing, Oliart studied with local fiddlers Anne Hooper (who plays in her band along with Wetstein), Katie McNally, and Hanneke Cassel and with Solas’s Winifred Horan. She released her first album, “Evening’s Dram,” in 2023, and will launch her second this fall.  

•Torrin Ryan & Amy Law—This duo epitomizes the “pure drop” approach to Irish traditional music: their respective instruments – Ryan on uilleann pipes, flute and whistle, Law on fiddle – in precise alignment from the beginning of a tune to its end, each adding contrasting but complementary qualities . A multiple All-Ireland Fleadh champion, Ryan – who has a solo album, “Uilleann Piping from the ‘Boros’” – has taken on leadership and educational roles through the Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann Boston Music School, the board for the annual Northeast Uilleann Pipers Tionól event and the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program. Law, who learned fiddle in the Sleabh Luachra style from Dale Russ – regarded as one of the finest Irish fiddlers living in the US – also is a sean-nos dancer and has played for ceili, set and contra dances. In addition to BCMFest, Ryan and Law have played at Maine Celtic Celebration, Blackstone River Theatre and Patsy Touhey Weekend, among other settings.

•Leland Martin, Janine Randall and Eamon Sefton—Martin is among the more high-profile Scottish/Cape Breton/New England-style fiddlers in the region, often leading or co-anchoring sessions at the Canadian American Club, McCarthy’s and the Luthier Collective in Somerville; playing for contra dances; performing at BCMFest and other events/venues; and teaching at the Boston States Fiddle Camp. He’s also taken a scholarly approach to his music, including a long-term project to make public recordings of tunes – some more than a hundred years old – for other musicians to listen to and be inspired to learn. He’ll be accompanied at Summer BCMFest by Janine Randall, one of the foremost Cape Breton-style pianists around, and guitarist Eamon Sefton, a denizen of numerous local Celtic sessions and a highly praised performer and teacher in his own right.

For tickets and other details – including livestream availability – go to passim.org/live-music/bcmfest-2026