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Eddi Reader is backstage and Henry McLeish is sitting in the cafe, chatting to Iain Anderson.

There's no shortage of well-kent faces around the Concert Hall during Celtic Connections so Bobby McFerrin is in good company.

But despite having performed with everyone from Herbie Hancock to the New York Philharmonic, not to mention winning 10 grammy awards and selling 20 million albums, the American singer is nervous.

This is his first education concert, you see, and while he's happy to put the lights up on his adult audience, and challenge them to a musical duet, he's not sure how well it's going to go down with 1,000 schoolchildren, none of whom were born when his big hit "Don't Worry, Be Happy" was in the charts.

"These concerts are very tough" he says.

"It's why i don't do them very often. I don't see that's my calling. I think my calling is releasing the kid in the adult, that's what I love to do.

"You don't have to teach kids to be kids. I guess my only job is to open up the world of music to them.

"But they can be a challenge, because they can be noisy and fidgety and some of my performance requires quiet."

Other performers in the education programme agree it's one of the toughest gigs in the festival - mid-morning to a restless audience with just 15 minutes per performer.

But McFerrin takes it in his stride.

Perched on the edge of the stage, creating songs out of the children's names, he has the whole auditorium hushed, then clapping along.

Here's the original one man band, the only instrument required, his extraordinary four octave voice.

And the children in the audience are in their element.

Most listened to some of his music before they came, some are already promising to search on YouTube.

And almost all of them know that one hit, even if it does date back to 1988.

McFerrin sighs.

"By the time it became a hit song, I had sung that song a few trillion times.

"Even before then, I was sick of performing it and then it became a huge hit.

"I don't do it in concert because I'd rather the audience grow with me, and hear other songs."

But he admits that every child in the audience would have been briefed by a parent with the lyrics "don't worry, be happy."

"I know," he says, "what can you do?"

Meanwhile, musicians at the festival are paying tribute to folk singer Kate McGarrigle, who has died at the age of 63, after a long battle with a rare form of cancer.

The singer, who with her sister Anna, formed the McGarrigle Sisters, last appeared at Celtic Connections in 2001, although her daughter Martha Wainwright appeared here last year.

Along with her son Rufus - both from her marriage to American singer Loudon Wainwright - she'd often appear in special family concerts, the most recent at the Albert Hall in December, one of her last public appearances.

Linda Thompson, also appeared at that concert and as she took to the stage herself at Celtic Connections she paid tribute to her friend.

"I knew Kate McGarrigle for over 40 years, but we got very close when our children became musicians.

"We all did her last show at Christmas in the Albert Hall. She was a remarkable woman, and such a talent.

"For my money, she and Anna's first record is one of the best ever. My thoughts and love are with Rufus and Martha and her whole family."

To paraphrase Rabbie Burns: "Here's tae her, wha's like her? Damn few and their a' deid!"