Young Tradition: Feis Rois

1 Feb 2005 in Festival, Music

The Piping Centre, Glasgow, Saturday 29 January 2005

THE PIPING CENTRE was once again filled to capacity on the last weekend of Celtic Connections, this time to let the young folk of Feis Rois take the stage as part of the Young Tradition Series at the Festival.

Feis Rois has been at the forefront of the propagation of the new generation of Traditional Musicians for several years, but every year the standard of overall musicianship and performance skills just seems to get higher and higher.

Just because these young folk are young – as young as 12 years old – does not mean that they are not good. In fact, most of these youngsters could take on any of the more prominent ‘more mature’ professionals around today and show them what it is really all about.

I have been privileged enough to follow many of these young folk through their fledgling musical careers and have witnessed them grow and flourish both as performers, people and in many cases, as tutors themselves.

The group of some 17 performers delivered a tight, very well rounded programme, encompassing group, duo and solo spots. The group, the Tassel Bandits, formed out of the Senior Feis in Ullapool, gave stomping sets of tunes, including some self penned ones, and showed us that they were indeed worthy winners of one of the Danny Kyle Awards at Celtic Connections 2004.

“It was obvious here that the performers were all enjoying themselves”

The 2004 Ceilidh Trailers also gave a sparkling set incorporating pipes, box, piano, clarsach, fiddle and Gaelic Song. Joined later by some step dancing, you begin to wonder if there is anything these young folk cannot play, do or sing.

Many of the audience were heard to comment that they could not get over just how versatile and multi instrumental the musicians were and one listener was heard to say “I cant get over how the music coming out of the Feis has evolved over the years- we used to get ‘High Road to Linton’ coming out of our ears, now we have Mike McGoldrick tunes and Blair Douglas songs”.

Confidence glowed from the performers and many introducing their sets in Gaelic as well as English, with no evidence of nerves whatsoever – this is one element of the work of the Feisean which is always a strong point.

Young musicians and singers are given the opportunity to perform in a variety of situations, in venues such as a Village Halls to theatres such as Eden Court. It was obvious here that the performers were all enjoying themselves, coping well with all the added stresses and strains of having rehearsals for 2 days and performing in front of families and friends – who are after all the most critical of critics.

We look forward to seeing many of these young people returning to Celtic Connections in future years as full blown professional musicians and singers.