DONALD Shaw likens the period leading up to the Celtic Connections programme being confirmed to the last hours of football’s transfer window. As he prepares to celebrate the festival’s 25th edition and his 12th year as director of arguably the world’s biggest winter musical extravaganza, Shaw has been awaiting news of both big name international players and talents who represent the future. He has also been firming up plans for staging what might be termed the biggest fixture in Celtic Connections’ history.

On Saturday, January 27, the festival’s main focus will fall on Bothy Culture and Beyond, a music-vision-bike spectacular, as the strapline has it, at The Hydro, the 13,000-capacity arena that claims to be the world’s second busiest live entertainment venue, which sits alongside its sister spaces, the SECC and the affectionately known Armadillo in the Scottish Event Campus on Glasgow’s waterfront in Finnieston.

Created around the second studio album by the ground-breaking musician and composer, the late Martyn Bennett, and the forerunner to the spectacularly successful Grit, the orchestrated version of which opened Celtic Connections 2015 and later transferred to Edinburgh International Festival, The Hydro show, for Shaw, is a reflection of how the traditional music at the festival’s core has grown in stature since Celtic Connections began in 1994.

“I don’t think anyone back in 1994 could have foreseen a time when what is essentially traditional music would have been staged, not just in a venue that size but with a 100-strong bespoke orchestra that can comfortably perform the nuances and embellishments of traditional music at the same time as dealing with a score that requires the technical ability of a classical orchestra,” says Shaw.

It almost goes without saying that predictions of this same music being synchronised with “a guy on a mountain bike”, as Shaw describes with due understatement the night’s special guest, global cycling sensation Danny MacAskill, were hard to find in 1994, too. But then, if anyone from within the world of traditional music was likely to have been the catalyst for such a seemingly unlikely pairing, it was Bennett, a musician whose bringing together, through samples of old recordings, of some of the greatest character-performers in the tradition with hardcore techno beats was a major "acid croft" inventors Shooglenifty, made traditional music cool among the young people who play it today.

Shaw is well aware that a significant percentage of Celtic Connections’ audience and a significant proportion of the 2000-plus musicians who will be performing across Glasgow from January 18 to February 4 have no idea what life is like without the festival.

“When I started to plan the 25th programme I made a point of reading through the brochures from 1994 onwards,” says Shaw, who as well as having programmed the festival since 2007, also has the distinction of having appeared on the festival every year as a musician, whether with his band Capercaillie, with the ultra-successful Transatlantic Sessions or in one situation or another, since year one.

“I think what struck me most when I was going through these brochures was all the great characters who appeared in the early years who are no longer with us, people like the great Gaelic singer Ishbel MacAskill and Michael Marra,” he says. “At the same time, there are a number of musicians and bands who have been an important part of the festival all through the years and I wanted to celebrate them, not in a nostalgic way, but in showing their strength in continuing to go forward.”

He confesses to being sobered ever so slightly by the realisation that 2018 marks the 50th anniversary of the Tannahill Weavers, who still tour the world, playing with energy and singing with gusto.

“You can look at the Tannies being on the road for 50 years and think, that’s a scary thought,” says Shaw. “And yet one of the young bands who will be playing in 2018, Rura, feature a piper, Steven Blake, who was influenced in a big way by listening to Alan MacLeod playing on Tannahill Weavers albums. So there’s a sense of continuation.”

Another band marking an anniversary, if not quite such a momentous one, are Blazin’ Fiddles, who formed in 1998. Their concert will see the current line-up augmented by all the original members, including Duncan Chisholm, Shetlander Catriona Macdonald, and Aidan O’Rourke, now of the popular and serial award-winning trio Lau.

For Shaw, Celtic Connections long ago became much more about the word “connections” than its Celtic connotations. It has become the festival where, in the dead of winter, the world comes to play.

Among the international attractions lined up for 2018 are Malian songbird Oumou Sangare, the acclaimed collaboration that has seen veteran soul and Afropop singer Jupiter Bokondji from the Democratic Republic of the Congo team up with guitar band Okwess International, and the Afro-Cuban Allstars, led by singer-guitarist Juan de Marcos González. Americana continues to have a strong presence, with the Alabama-born, Texas-based creator of “Ameripolitan” music, Dale Watson featuring in the programme alongside the Mavericks, Shawn Colvin, sisters Alison Moorer & Shelby Lynne, and bluegrass talents Railsplitters and Sierra Hull.

Every year the festival joins with an international partner country and following last year’s influx of Brazilian musicians, 2018 will see a strong representation from slightly closer to home, Ireland.

“It makes perfect sense for us, especially in the 25th year, to be partnered by Ireland,” says Shaw. “For a long time Scottish musicians looked over there for examples of taking the music forward, then the influence swung over here. Now there are some great things happening in Ireland again, although I have to say that two of the nights I’m looking forward to most are well-known quantities, fiddler Martin Hayes, an old friend of Celtic Connections, with his new quartet and what I think will be a really exciting trio of uilleann piper Paddy Keenan, fiddler Frankie Gavin and accordionist Dermot Byrne.”

Other Irish musicians appearing include veteran singer, flautist and tin whistle virtuoso Cathal McConnell, of Boys of the Lough, with his trio and fiddler Liz Carroll, a Chicagoan but very much an Irish music hero. Rising Dublin songsters Lankum and Daoiri – pronounced Derry – Farrell are also among the Irish guests.

Programming, says Shaw, is a combination of chance and design. While he keeps a close eye on what’s happening in traditional music at home, leading to appearances in 2018 by hot young bands Imar, Talisk and Elephant Sessions, and across the range of music that has come under the Celtic Connections umbrella, he is also open to approaches from musicians with their own ideas.

“One of the things that make my job easier and more enjoyable is that the festival has become a vehicle for aspirations,” he says. “Musicians know that they can come to us with what might be fairly ambitious plans and know that the festival can give a level of support, production and audience that will allow them to experiment without fear, to be brave. I think it’s noticeable how traditional musicians have become much more willing to take risks in the years since Celtic Connections began.”

He cites the fiddle and harp partnership of Chris Stout and Catriona McKay as musicians who consistently challenge what traditional music is and can be.

“I’m not sure that when Celtic Connections began, musicians in Scotland would have had the vision that Chris and Catriona have,” he says of the duo who will collaborate with Brazilian singers, the Scottish Ensemble and singer-songwriter King Creosote. “Their willingness to take the music to the edge in terms of spontaneous creativity and tonal expression, while still being very much a part of the tradition, is inspirational and I think they’re a great example to young players. In a way they’re what Celtic Connections is all about because we’re marking the past, the present and the future at the same time all the time.”

Shaw's favourites

Picking his highlights in the programme is like being asked to choose his favourite children but Donald Shaw is especially pleased to confirm the return of Oumou Sangare on January 30. The Malian singer and businesswoman – she owns hotels and farmland and has launched her own car – is a strong advocate for women’s rights and her music takes its energy from her depth of feeling on issues such as freedom of choice in marriage. She recently released her seventh album, Mogoya, to much acclaim.

Singer, mandolinist and guitarist Sierra Hull has been on Shaw’s programming wish-list for three or four years now and finally makes her Celtic Connections debut on January 26, bringing bluegrass virtuosity and vocal sincerity.

Bothy Culture and Beyond (January 27) and Chris Stout & Catriona McKay (January 19) represent the bravery and confidence traditional musicians have made since Celtic Connections’ early days and Òraine nan Gaidheal: Songs of the Gael (January 26), which features a group of Gaelic music’s finest singers with specially commissioned arrangements for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra will give Gaelic song a sumptuous showcase.

Fiddler Martin Hayes’ new quartet (January 31) features his long-time musical partner, guitarist Dennis Cahill, bass clarinettist Doug Wieselman and Liz Knowles combining the finesse of Irish fiddle music with classical violin on the hardanger d’amore. This promises music that’s intimate in feel and panoramic in scope.

The celebration of the 20th anniversary of the island of Eigg’s independence (January 28) is almost as much about the spirit of the islanders’ enterprise and dedication to principle as it is music but will feature a strong programme of musicians with close links to the island, including Gaelic music heroes Daimh.

And like Sierra Hull, Jupiter Okwess (January 20) has been in Shaw’s plans for some time and promises soulful songs driven by a high energy, partying band.