Exploring Deep Connections

ROB ADAMS catches up with fiddler DUNCAN CHISHOLM ahead of the premiere of his Blas commission, and found him in unusually hyperactive mode

DUNCAN CHISHOLM is a busy man these days. Between commitments with Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis’s band, his duo with singer-guitarist Ivan Drever and, of course, the ever popular Wolfstone, Duncan has been working on a major multimedia commission for the Blas festival, called KIN.

ROB ADAMS: Duncan, tell us how the new piece came about?

DUNCAN CHISHOLM: I’d been speaking to the people at Blas about writing an extended work and after a few weeks thinking about what I might do, I decided that I wanted to create something that was about more than just music.

It really all came from a recording that’s been in my family for a long time of my great grandmother talking about her life. She was born in 1879 and when she got married in 1900, she and my great grandfather moved to Strath Glass, way out in the wilds on the west side of Loch Affric.

I found how she described life at that time very interesting, not just from our own family’s perspective but from a social perspective too. So the idea was that I should I go and film myself at the house where she brought up my grandfather and use the recording along with music I would write to go with it.

It’s been the busiest year of my life – I’m dying to get back onto the golf course

RA: Did you find that having gained a sense of the place you were writing about helped when it came to actually composing the music?

DC: Absolutely. I came back from that trip really inspired in a few different ways. Firstly – and I found this with the other location work we went on to do, too – it’s so much easier to come up with music that suits the location when you’ve been there because you have something to relate to. You can really get a feel for the place and the people who lived there. Rather than writing melodies blind, you get something deeper, something with a real connection to that specific place.

The other main point was when I got back I thought, maybe we could expand this and get a wider picture of life in the Highlands. So I went to the School of Scottish Studies in Edinburgh where they have a vast library of recordings. The choice is so vast it’s daunting, but I was able to pick out a few people from different places.

In fact, the idea at that point was to work on six characters but in the end I had to restrict it to four because the material I was working with was so strong and I only had an hour to fill. To do the characters real justice, I felt we had to limit the number.

RA: Did you find other characters who, like your great grandmother, had connections with the current music scene?

DC: I did, yes. One of them was Rona Lightfoot’s grandmother, in fact. Rona’s a wonderful Gaelic singer and, of course, it was important that we had a strong Gaelic strain in the project. So I took Rona to South Uist where her grandmother was born four or five years after the American Civil War ended.

In the grand scheme of things, from then till now – about one hundred and forty years – is only the blink of an eye. Yet so much has changed in that time. I found that really fascinating and really quite sad in that Gaelic had gone from being this strong, vibrant language then to the fragile state it’s in now.

But the pleasing thing is that, with the wonders of modern technology, I was able to make a recording of a waulking song which has Rona’s grandmother and mother and Rona herself singing. One of the other characters is Effie Stewart, who is one of the last of the traveller Stewarts and who has inherited the mantle of hereditary storyteller – and the hundreds of stories that go with that title. Going back with her to the family’s campsites and hearing about their life on the road was really interesting and inspiring too.

RA: So what form will KIN take in the four concerts you’re doing for Blas?

DC: We’ll be using the films I’ve recorded and voice recordings but the music will be played live. I’m working with Brian McAlpine on keyboards and Marc Clement on guitar, just a trio, which allows the musicians to make their own input. I’ve written about twenty-odd pieces of music but I want them to live and develop as we do the tour.

RA: It sounds as if this project has really fired you up. Would you like to take it further in future?

DC: It’s been an incredible experience. I haven’t written all that many tunes in my life, certainly not compared to some other fiddlers who are incredibly prolific, and in Wolfstone the composition I’ve been involved with has been mainly songwriting. So this has been a lot of music for me to come up with, which was quite hard work, but rewarding.

It’s also been great to have complete control because I was involved in the Big Music project for the Highland Festival a few years ago and certain aspects of it were taken out of my hands. This is all me, down to the editing, everything, and that’s been really exciting.

I could easily go on to do KIN 2, 3 and 4 and that’s certainly something I’d like to do because I’ve really got the bug now. It just gives you a whole new perspective and I hope it opens some doors because I’d love to get involved more with film music and production work.

RA: How did you manage to fit all the location work and composing into your schedule because you seem to have been gigging like a madman too this year?

DC: It’s been the busiest year of my life – I’m dying to get back onto the golf course. I’d no sooner started work on KIN than I was off on a thirty-five date tour with Julie Fowlis and then there was a thirty date tour with Ivan [Drever].

So I think every day off I’ve had I’ve either spent with a fiddle in my hand or filming, editing, what have you. I’m not generally the sort of musician who plays every available second. I like to have a good balance in my life between playing music and doing things outside music. So this has been an exceptionally hard-working period.

RA: And what’s next, once you’ve completed the KIN dates for Blas?

DC: I’m planning another solo album and looking at recording that in October. I was very pleased with the first two and after getting into a kind of Spanish influence with the second one, The Door of Saints, I’d like the next one to be more Highland with Gaelic melodies, possibly using some of the music from KIN. It’s been five or six years since I made The Door of Saints, so it’s probably about time I did another one.

I’m also going out with Julie Fowlis’s band in November for quite a long tour as support to the American singer-songwriter Beth Nielsen Chapman. I love working with Julie because she’s such an amazing singer, her band are a great bunch of people, very professional, and I just have to turn up with my fiddle. I don’t have to be the organiser, for once.

RA: And lastly, what are Wolfstone’s plans?

DC: We’ve had a quiet year, certainly by our normal standards, due to personnel changes. I think we’ve only played six or seven gigs in 2007. But we’re coming back strongly again. We’re looking at 2008 as a busy year of touring and generally getting out there and playing for our fans again.

KIN can be seen at Grantown Grammar School on 3 September; Glen Urquhart Public Hall, Drumnadrochit, 4 September; Resolis Memorial Hall, 5 September; and Glengarry Community Hall, 6 September.

© Rob Adams, 2007

Links

• Duncan Chisholm
• Blas
• Wolfstone