2024 Artists in Residence

This year we welcome two artists-in-residence who will share their work in a variety of ways throughout the week. Vincent Crotty, Irish plein air painter, will capture live scenes of the festival with on-site paintings of concerts, classes, and jam sessions. Vermont luthier Jacob Brillhart will be at work building and repairing instruments in a dedicated space where everyone is invited to drop in to watch the process and bring your own instruments along. Vincent and Jacob will each teach an afternoon enrichment class to demonstrate some of their creative processes and techniques.

Vincent Crotty

Vincent Crotty is an Irish-born artist from Kanturk, County Cork, who immigrated to Boston in 1990. Regarded for his landscapes and nocturnes, streetscapes and figurative paintings, he paints with bold and fluid brushstrokes, balanced by sensitive color. His paintings reveal a remarkable understanding of light — transforming everyday subject matter into images that are memorable and moving.

Vincent has been exhibiting his paintings in solo and group shows for more than 35 years — at galleries in Ireland and throughout the US. His work has been recognized with awards from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the John Stobart Foundation, the Charitable Irish Society, Plein Air Magazine, and juried art competitions internationally.

Vincent has given workshops and painting demonstrations in the US, Canada, and Ireland, and he currently teaches weekly classes at the New Art Center in Newton, Mass. As a long-time faculty member at the Catskills Irish Arts Week in New York, he developed a specialty in the live painting of traditional music and dance events. Together with his wife, dancer Kieran Jordan, he has brought this vision to many festivals, céilís, and music gatherings — capturing a sense of energy, place, and time, with the here-and-now excitement of music and dance in motion.

Also a portrait artist, he has given portrait demonstrations at the Harvard University Art Museums, and his portraiture has been commissioned by the Boston College Burns Library, the Irish Cultural Center of New England, and the Michael J. Quill Cultural Centre in New York. In addition, Vincent has created set designs for theater companies and touring productions including Atlantic Steps, Cork City Ballet, the Huntington Theater Company, Kieran Jordan Dance, A Christmas Celtic Sojourn, and his paintings were used on the set of the movie Mystic River.

Jacob Brillhart

Jacob Brillhart aims to build violin family instruments that are both exciting to play and are also objects of sculptural beauty. From his shop in central Vermont, Brillhart builds both violins and violas with carefully selected European wood. It is his goal to make instruments that possess a strong and powerful voice and display intricate and delicate craftsmanship. To achieve this, he shapes every piece entirely by hand. With each stroke of chisel or knife the unique characteristics and subtleties of each piece of wood become revealed.

Brillhart also enjoys playing the Cape Breton style fiddle and performs regularly around northern New England with his family trio.

The Acadia Festival of Traditional Music & Dance is governed by Friends of the Acadia Trad Festival, a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) Maine nonprofit corporation. Website art by Anabelle Keimach and Annelise Papinsick.