This is the sentence which welcomes all the people coming into the secular Peuterey Woods, in Val Veny, the heart of Celtica.

CELTICA is a festival of Celtic art, music and culture…

CELTICA is the highest festival in Europe dedicated to ancient and modern Celts, who love to meet up at the foot of the Big Mountains…

CELTICA is a festival born in 1997 thanks to the cultural association Clan Grande Orsa with the intent to gather people who love Celtic traditions or are just curious about it, on the slopes of the Mount Blanc and in the Aosta Valley. A special gathering created to live an ancient dream through a magic event made of music and dance, concerts and parades, conferences and games, poetry and historical re-enactments, among the trees of a secular wood or between the walls of an ancient fortress.

At CELTICA past and present merge to produce poetical and magical atmospheres, created by the Celtic harp and Scottish bagpipes, Galician drums, Irish dances, historical camps and the telling of ancient stories and legends.

At CELTICA everybody is personally involved living the festival to the fullest: adults and children can take part in many activities, from dance workshops to music courses, from lectures to handcraft workshops, from storytelling around the fire to the games in the Nature.

By experiencing the festival in this way, the magic of CELTICA will become clear: it is an ensemble of friendship and music, dance and culture, art and poetry, where learning is a game and having fun is to find harmony in a smile, in the breath of the wind, in the flames of the fire.

At CELTICA the heart of the festival lies among the trees of the Peuterey Woods where, during the day, many activities take place, such as workshops, the handcraft market and the lectures of researchers, storytelling for children and dance workshops, music courses and walks in the nature, handcraft workshops and the performance of emerging and expert musicians.

In the evening, on the main stage, concerts embody a continuous stream of energy and emotions thanks to the talent of internationally renowned artists coming from all over the world.

And then, for those still wanting more good music, the traditional “Veilla Celtique” Sessions at the Pub in the Woods, will keep people up during late nights, featuring most of the Celtica’s bands that performed during the day. A party time in the festival..

Following the flow, concert after concert, parade after parade, all the musicians of the festival (more than a hundred) gathered on the last evening in order to perform “GreenLands” (Celtic Nations anthem). At that point there aren’t any words left to describe this peculiar and intense moment. You need to be there to enjoy it personally.

Time flies fast during four intense days full of events, and in the last afternoon, around the menhir, we say goodbye and we thank the Woods, the Big Mountains and the whole Valley for hosting us. From here Celtica continues South of the region, in the Village and the Fortress of Bard, where the last performances will close the festival.

And then we go home…dreaming…CELTICA…one year more…

“Winds and Storms have passed by. Men and women have come and gone. However, the Dream is still there, present, alive as ever, in the Earth of the Grande Orsa….Tir Na Mor Arth!”