Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow, 19 January 2008

Mercedes Peon (photo - www.mercedespeon.es/)

GALICIA is a region which is very well known for its summer festivals and although it’s hardly summer in Glasgow just now, the music and atmosphere certainly kept us warm in the Old Fruitmarket on the first Saturday of this year’s Celtic Connections.

In a spot of great programming by Donald Shaw, the artistic director of the festival now celebrating its 15th Anniversary, the Galician Night featured three of the regions top contemporary artists.

First on stage was the passionate music of Anxo Lorenzo Band, led by Lorenzo on the Galician gaita or pipes. The band fused their traditional instruments with strong elements of funk, world and dance music, to create an infectious blend of ever changing rhythm and tone, guaranteed to keep an audience on its toes. His own seven-piece line was boosted when he was joined by piper Angus Mackenzie and fiddler Gabe McVarish, of Daimh fame.

Following on from Budino, the stage was set alight by the slight but completely engaging personality of one of Galicia’s most interesting and hypnotic performers, Mercedes Peon. Her voice is described as being ‘incandescent’ and it is not hard to understand why – from her first sung notes, the quality and tone of the voice has a strangely hypnotic effect on the listener.

A passionate and charismatic performer, Peon draws the audience into her world. Despite largely not understanding a word, we can feel part of that world and understand the drive and emotion contained in that voice which embodies the musical traditions of Galicia.

Peon is one of the finest examples of an artist who understands implicitly how to intertwine traditional styles, material and instrumentation from her ‘high octane’ band, with an absolute wealth of contemporary influences, driving bass in rhythm and keyboards. Inspired to learn more from this singer, this writer was disappointed at not being able to find any merchandise on sale at the venue.

Peon was followed by the exciting sounds of the supremely gifted exponent of the Galician gaita or pipes, Xose Manuel Budino. Budino has led the way for those Galician bands who are continually striving to develop and showcase new strands of traditional music intertwined with contemporary influences across the genre spectrum.

Galicia is certainly not short of these high energy bands who intuitively know how to use their traditional instruments to appeal to a contemporary audience to best effect.

Under the inspired baton of Shaw, the Celtic Connections audiences are continuing to absorb some excellent and exciting new genres which can surely only bode well for the future of what is now one of the world’s biggest, best and most representative festivals of world music.

© Fiona Mackenzie, 2008

Links

• Celtic Connections