UK and European fans of "The Blair Band" tune in Thursday Dec. 18th at 320p GMT when Ric will be returning to Premier Radio in London, England to do a live radio interview with Bridgitte Tetteh.  They will also be giving away some free "Blair Band" "A Celtic Christmas" CDs over the air.  You may also listen online by visiting http://www.premierradio.org.uk/

"The Blair Band" just returned from beautiful snowy Midland, MI where they performed their "A Celtic Christmas" concert.  The snow could not have been more timely as Midland received about 4 inches of snow just before the concert.  The snow could be seen outside the venue falling during the concert.  Quite a realistic stage prop.

In Novemeber, ric flew to Ireland to perform nearly 3 weeks worth of concerts around the country.  He started out doing a four hour radio show at 93.1 FM in Cork Ireland!  (see 93.1 FM Ireland DJ Thomas Hoban).  Ric says, "The great thing about the radio stations in Ireland is that they will play such an artistic array of styles of music over the air.  They will go from a U2 song to traditional Irish tune to David Gray to Reggae to Pink Floyd.  It is not so pigeon holed as it is in America.  Much more creative.  It was a great honor to be invited to 93.1 FM Ireland.

Ric played a couple concerts while in Cork and then moved on to Waterford, Doolin, Listowel, Galway and ended in Dublin.  While in Dublin he played with reknown Irish fiddler Sinead Madden.  Sinead plays with Moya Brennan of Clannad and sister to Enya.  Referring to his time in Dublin Ric commented "Sinead is a brilliant talent. She picked everything up with hardly a rehearsal.  Great stuff!" 

In September, just before going to Ireland Ric connected with arranger/conductor/pianist Tom Howard in Nashville.  Tom is one of the top arrangers in Nashville and has orchestrated for everyone from Peter Cetera and Amy Grant to Dolly Parton and Lynyrd Skynard.  Tom composed an "over the top" killer string arrangement for Ric's radio single "The Greatest Gift".  "The Blair Band" decided to wait and release the single next year but it will certainly worth the release.  In describing the arrangement Ric says,"It sounds like a new version to Elton John's "Madman across the Water".  Absolutely breathtaking!"

"The Blair Band" has exciting plans in 2009 as they are hooking up with more Performing Arts Centers across the U.S. and also are putting together their plans for a new 2009 recording entitled "The Blair Band" "Live from Scotland"!  Also, in Jan.  "The Blair Band" will begin booking their "A Celtic Christmas" full production bus tour for Dec. 2009!  This wil be sponsored by Maxx Productions and World Vision!