Eddi Reader: At the Irish Connections Festival, Irish Cultural Centre, Canton, Aug. 10-11. Scottish singer Reader (right) began her improbable rise singing on the streets of her native Glasgow, cut her teeth in the British punk scene of the '80s, and recently fronted the Royal National Scottish Orchestra, performing the 18th-century songs of Robert Burns. On her new album, "Peacetime," she moves like hot honey from traditional Scottish songs to edgy anthems by the Trashcan Sinatras' John Douglas. She should feel right at home at this summer's adventurous, globe-trotting Irish Connections Festival, where she'll share the spotlight with such fellow genre benders as Altan, Dervish, Nanci Griffith, Guggenheim Grotto, Uncle Earl, and the Prodigals. 781-821-8291. Irishculture.org.

Read more: There's a timelessness to her songs (Scott Alarik, Globe Correspondent)