Celtic music veterans the Chieftains will embark on a 30-date tour of the U.S. later this month, according to the group’s publicist. Singer Joan Osborne [ tickets ] and Canadian fiddler Natalie MacMaster will join the group on the first leg of the outing.

On Jan. 15, the Chieftains’ tour is scheduled to get underway in Denver, Colo. Five dates in California, three in Texas and single stops in Utah, Arizona and Louisiana follow by month’s end. Three early February stops are then planned for Louisiana, Nebraska and Missouri before the tour takes a three-week break.

The jaunt resumes in the Midwest on Feb. 25, then moves to the South in early March. Performances in the Northeast follow, with four stops planned throughout New York, two in New Jersey and single dates in Boston and Washington, D.C. The group’s itinerary ends with a March 17 engagement at New York City’s Carnegie Hall.

The Chieftains [ tickets ] are touring in support of their February 2000 release, “Water from the Well” (RCA). Two of the group’s prior releases--1991’s “Bells of Dublin” and 1995’s “The Long Black Veil”--have been certified gold for shipping over 500,000 copies each, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

One of the best-known bands playing traditional Irish music, the Chieftains released their first, self-titled album in 1963. The group gained mass-appeal in the U.S. for its Academy Award-winning score for the 1975 Stanley Kubrick film “Barry Lydon.”

Osborne and MacMaster are scheduled to join the Chieftains from Jan. 15 through Feb. 4. “Righteous Love” (Interscope), Osborne’s latest album, was released last September.

MacMaster’s latest--“In My Hands” (Rounder)--was released in September of 1999. “My Roots are Showing,” MacMaster’s previous album, was released in Canada in 1998, and in the U.S. last April. The album has been nominated for this year’s Grammy Award in the “Best Traditional Folk Album” category.