Culloden Academy, Inverness, 6 September 2007

TMSA Young Trad Tour 2007.

PROMOTED by the Traditional Music and Song Association of Scotland, this annual roadshow of emerging folk talent has become a valuable extension to Radio Scotland’s Young Traditional Musician of the Year competition, decided each January at Celtic Connections.

The winner and runners-up gain both the experience and the exposure of a professionally organised three-week tour, meanwhile offering audiences up and down Scotland the proverbial chance to catch tomorrow’s stars today.

Further enhancing the benefits for all parties, the show is much more than the series of individual turns that might be expected. This opening night of the tour, one of three Highland dates at the Blas festival, followed several days’ intensive rehearsal, under the musical direction of singer, harpist and Unusual Suspects co-founder Corrina Hewat, to create a fully-fledged concert set, albeit one that successively highlighted each performer’s contribution.

Reunited from that close-fought night at the start of the year were the eventual victor Catriona Watt, an 18-year-old Gaelic singer from Lewis, and her five fellow finalists: Mike Vass (fiddle), Calum Stewart (flute), Calum MacCrimmon (pipes/whistles), Martin Hunter (accordion) and Darren MacLean (Gaelic song).

They were joined by last year’s competition winner Shona Mooney (fiddle), plus accompanists Innes Watson (guitar) and Mhairi Hall (piano/flute).

The set comprised a mix of full-band numbers, both songs and instrumentals, with others featuring fewer performers, such as a beautifully interwoven jig set solely on flutes and whistle, from Stewart, MacCrimmon and Hall, and a stark yet lyrical solo slow air from Sliabh Luachra by Hunter.

The larger ensemble pieces displayed impressive ambition in both choice of material (including a good many originals by band members) and style of arrangement, with an equal preponderance of tricksy asymmetric time-signatures and syncopated, groove-based backing – if anything, perhaps, a slight over-preponderance.

Arresting and exciting as these Balkan-style and/or jazzy rhythms are, a few more straight-ahead jigs and reels might have made for a better balance, enabling both the band and the show as a whole to settle and gel more easily.

For the most part, though, a degree of tentativeness and the odd glitchy moment can readily be ascribed to first-night raw edges, which will surely smooth themselves out over subsequent gigs. And there’s no disputing the calibre of the musicians involved, underscoring the competition’s credentials as a crème de la crème affair.

On the vocal front, Watt proved herself a worthy winner, her gorgeous velvety timbre and delicate phrasing reminiscent at times of Karen Matheson, though with a higher, brighter upper register, while MacLean adds another name to Scotland’s fast-growing contingent of outstanding young male Gaelic singers, his warm-grained, pliant tones allied with tremendously assured delivery.

Each of the six, though, shone in turn, from MacCrimmon’s brilliantly fiery, fleet-fingered piping to Hunter’s soulful, sinewy button-box tunes; Vass’s edgy, quicksilver vitality to Stewart’s spirited, adventurous blowing.

Competitions don’t always get a good press in the folk world, and there are valid arguments against them, but as an illustration of how their rewards can extend far beyond the individual prize, the Young Trad tour makes a winningly persuasive case.

(The TMSA Young Trad Tour runs until 28 September – see TMSA link below for details)

© Sue Wilson, 2007

Links

• Blas
• TMSA Young Trad Tour 2007