Once More Into The Breach

SUE WILSON caught up with DONALD SHAW ahead of his second festival as Artistic Consultant of Celtic Connections, Glasgow’s major annual celebration of Celtic music – and a lot more besides

NORTHINGS: Did you find it easier or harder programming the festival second time around?

DONALD SHAW: A bit of both, really. Last year I had to do a lot of second-guessing, in terms of which type of acts would work in which venue, and also trying to avoid clashes between shows that would appeal to similar audiences – which I hope was partly why the ticket sales went up as they did. Whereas this time I had last year’s event to look back on, so it was easier to programme slots into the right places.

Choosing the acts themselves, though, was harder if anything: the great big sweetie-shop I started out with last year had got a lot smaller, with far fewer obvious contenders who hadn’t played Celtic Connections before. There was a lot of pressure that first time to make the programme look new, put a fresh angle on it, but it’s reached the stage where it’s so big, you can’t realistically have 600 completely different acts of the same quality each year.

Also, because the festival is so reliant on box office, you can’t bring in a whole load of acts people have never heard of. It’s often a case of finding some connection so that audiences can understand why an artist is there – like with Chris Thile for instance, who’s bringing his new band Punch Brothers: hopefully enough people will know his name from Nickel Creek to want to see him doing something different.

As the festival keeps growing, we have to move into other genres, but we do always think about the reasons behind each act – it’s not like I’m going to book Robbie Williams and try and argue that it makes sense

N: Given that your first festival was so successful, including a 30% increase in ticket sales, was there extra pressure on you to match or exceed that?

DS: I personally didn’t find it as stressful – I was so worried about it last year that I spent every waking moment thinking about it, but having done one that went well made me less anxious this time. And the pressure comes more from myself than anything – initially I was on a bit of crusade for every single show to be something I’d want to see myself, but I’ve realised that’s unreasonable.

I’m not going to share everybody’s taste across the entire spectrum of folk and roots music, but it’s my job to put together a programme that appeals to that breadth of audience. Celtic Connections is much bigger than any one person’s taste – it belongs to the city and the people who come to it.

N: What are your abiding memories of the festival itself last time, and what are the key things you learned?

DS: The main thing I remember is dashing round the streets of Glasgow at about 70 miles per hour, running in and out of venues to see bits of as many shows as I could. It’s a very strange experience, but really uplifting – going into a big one-off event in the Main Auditorium, like John Martyn doing Solid Air, for instance, and getting this incredible feeling of reverence from the audience, then after three or four songs I might be off to a really jumping gig at the Fruitmarket, which is just like arriving at a big party when it’s in full swing.

And then I’d maybe catch the end of something like the Barra Night at St Andrew’s in the Square, and it’d be like walking into Castlebay Hall, with this beautiful Gaelic singing and this incredibly warm vibe off the audience. Apart from the actual shows, the best thing was just being around to speak to people, hearing what audiences had to say, so I could get more of a first-hand feel for what works and what doesn’t.

Other than that, a lot of what I learned was more logistical than anything, including last-minute issues with venues we hadn’t used before, like the ABC and the Classic Grand, having curfews on some nights, so some acts unfortunately ended up getting their sets cut: that’s something we’ve rectified this year.

And the other key thing is that I definitely won’t be performing as much: so many people asked me to get up and do a couple of numbers with them last year, it just got unbelievably stressful. Although I did love playing at the opening night: walking on and seeing all these artists onstage, everyone had made it onto their flights and got there, and now the whole thing was actually starting – that was a great feeling.

N: Talk us through the various themed strands within the 2008 programme, and how or why you came up with them.

DS: Both times now, oddly enough, some of the main strands have evolved out of things which didn’t end up happening. Last year, for instance, I had the idea of celebrating Glasgow’s connections with folk music right back to the 1960s, like we did with the Matt McGinn night, and I tried really hard to get Bruce Springsteen and the Seeger Sessions as part of that. But when that didn’t pan out, it set me off down the whole Americana road, and that grew into a whole other strand in itself.

This time round, I was trying to get Bobby McFerrin – a lot of people only know him from ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’, but he’s also a real legend of song, who uses his voice in lots of unusual ways. Even though that didn’t happen, it got me thinking about the whole idea of the voice as an instrument, and putting on artists who explored that in different ways. And so we’ve got things like the Voices of the World show, including the Bulgarian choir Angelite, which is a special project to bring to any festival, just one of those sounds that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

Someone like kd lang is obviously a bit more mainstream, but she’s also recognised as an extraordinary vocalist, while Baaba Maal ties in with both the voice and the world music strands. And by putting him on with Jenna Cumming as support, I’m also trying to point out the kind of connections that exist between seemingly disparate artists. Baaba Maal is one of the biggest names in world music, but he’s also, essentially, someone who comes from a village culture and sings songs based on very old traditions – really not so different from a lot of Celtic performers.

We dipped a toe into world music last year, with the Real World night and other shows, and this time we’ve got several acts from Eastern Europe as well as Baaba Maal. As Celtic Connections continues to grow, it seems a natural area for the festival to move into – and I’m also very conscious of how much Glasgow lost when Billy Kelly died; he was just amazing for bringing in world music acts that had never played here before.

It could be a couple of years yet before the city has another dedicated world music festival up and running, so in the meantime it makes sense for us to kind of hold the fort in that direction.

The Gaelic side of things is also particularly strong this year, with the premiere of Ronald Stevenson’s Ben Dorain as one of our major flagship events. That whole story is just so extraordinary, the number of different connections it involves. The piece itself dates back to 1962, when Stevenson presented Shostakovich with the score of his Passacaglia on DSCH at the Edinburgh Festival.

Hugh MacDiarmid happened to be there, and told Stevenson about Duncan Ban MacIntyre’s work – which MacDiarmid had translated – and suggested that he compose something based on it. The poem Ben Dorain is such a backbone of Gaelic culture, written by someone who fought at Culloden, and it’s very close to my own heart: Duncan Ban MacIntyre lived about six miles down the road from where I grew up.

So Ronald Stevenson sits in his shed at the bottom of his garden working on this thing for more than 40 years – over half his life – and finally finishes it last year. The Edinburgh International Festival were approached about putting it on, but they weren’t interested – which I think just shows what an issue we’ve still got in this country sometimes, about recognising homegrown talent. Stevenson’s reputation is much higher in the rest of Europe, with some people rating him as Scotland’s equivalent to Sibelius.

For us, it’s all been really fortuitous – Stevenson turns 80 in 2008, and his family has played such a part in Celtic Connections over the years, through Savourna and Anna-Wendy, as well as Gerda’s husband Aonghas MacNeacail – and it just all came together for us to put it on. I would really encourage people to check it out: it’s going to be absolutely massive, apart from anything else, with 80 in the choir, plus a full symphony orchestra and a chamber orchestra.

Aside from that, we’ve got a really strong Gaelic line-up across the board, with a lot of the younger singers who’ve come through in the last few years, but a real mix of generations, too, with shows like the Lewis and Harris Night. Those geographically-based concerts are another strand we’ve retained from last year – we’re also doing a Shetland Night and a Benbecula Night – along with some more Classic Album shows.

N: Talking of the Classic Album strand, some people have queried the inclusion of recent debut releases by young contemporary artists: what’s your rationale behind this?

DS: For me, in this context, a classic album doesn’t have to be something that’s been around for 20 or 30 years, it can be an album that’s important for right now. To take the Lauren MacColl/Maeve MacKinnon double bill as an example, I think Lauren’s album shows someone who’s not only incredibly technically skilled as a fiddle player, but also approaches her playing in much the same way as Martin Hayes, say, in terms of control and sensitivity, which gives her sound a really timeless feel.

In Maeve’s case, there are so many great young Gaelic singers around just now, who’ve made great albums in the last couple of years, but I think she’s just been that bit bolder in terms of experimentation and arrangements, but in a very, very musical way. I’m not saying these are albums that will necessarily be recognised as classics in 20 years time, or even that they’re better than the rest of the current crop, just that they’re really strong examples of what’s happening with the music at the moment.

N: After slightly mixed results in the past, the indie/rock aspects of the programme proved very successful last time, with another substantial line-up in this vein for 2008: what’s your approach to incorporating this area of music?

DS: Now that we’re using the ABC and the Classic Grand, I think we’ve got the right venues for putting on this type of acts, where their audiences are used to going. Also, in a lot of cases, there’s some previous connection with the festival or the folk scene – Colin McIntyre’s worked with Blazin’ Fiddles, for instance, and Teenage Fanclub have always worn their folk influences fairly prominently on their sleeve.

Some of the other bands just have a very strong Glasgow identity, which for me means they belong at Celtic Connections as much as anything else. Again, as the festival keeps growing, we have to move into other genres, but we do always think about the reasons behind each act – it’s not like I’m going to book Robbie Williams and try and argue that it makes sense.

N: Aside from the programme itself, the other big news for 2008 is the Festival Club returning to the Central Hotel: how did that come about?

DS: Well, we didn’t have much option about moving again, given that the Holiday Inn’s been knocked down! But it wasn’t an automatic decision – we looked very carefully at all the places that could potentially have done it. Although we knew that the audience had always loved the Central, the club was originally moved because the facilities just weren’t up to scratch, but it’s had quite an overhaul in the last two or three years.

Another big factor was that the first manager we worked with at the Holiday Inn is now at the Central, so she knows what she’s dealing with. A key problem before was that the main room for the music was just way too small, but we’re using their bigger function suite this time. Most people seem delighted that we’re going back there, so hopefully it’ll work out fine.

N: How are ticket sales going?

DS: We’re already up on last year – which itself was a big jump from the year before, so that’s looking good so far, fingers crossed.

N: Lastly, you’ve committed yourself to remaining as Artistic Consultant up to 2009: do you plan to step down after that?

DS: I honestly don’t know at this point – when I first took on the job, it was just easier to think in terms of three years, but I’m not ruling anything in or out. I certainly haven’t found it a chore, but I’m also still involved in some pretty big musical projects. It’s already been a fantastic roller-coaster, though – even if it has taken years off my life!

Celtic Connections runs from 16 January until 3 February in Glasgow.

© Sue Wilson, 2007

Links

• Celtic Connections