Raising the Profile of Gaelic Song

NORTHINGS hears about the work of Highland Council’s Màiri Mhòr Gaelic Song Fellow, Dingwall-based singer FIONA MACKENZIE

FIONA MACKENZIE was appointed as Highland Council’s Màiri Mhòr Gaelic Song Fellow when the post was set up in 2002. Brought up in Moray, she is a Gaelic learner who has done much to promote the development of Gaelic song through her ongoing work in the Fellowship, and as a performer.

Fiona released the first collection of Gaelic carols on CD, Duan Nollaig (Greentrax), late last year. She is a former Gold Medal winner at the National Mod, and was voted Traditional Music Personality of the Year at the Scots Trad Awards in 2004. She sings with the Inverness Gaelic Choir as well as leading Fionnar, a choir she set up in 2003 to encourage young Gaelic singers drawn from all over Scotland. She is a regular contributor to Northings.

NORTHINGS: Fiona, for those not familiar with the Màiri Mhòr Gaelic Song Fellowship, can you explain how it came into being?

FIONA MACKENZIE: The Fellowship was inaugurated in 2002 as a follow up to the literary fellowship that Highland Council had established, and they wanted to launch a similar project to work with Gaelic song, and to give it a bit more profile. I started really with a clean canvas, and it was up to me to develop the programme, which was initially for three years, but was further extended in 2005.

N: And the name?

FM: It was called the Màiri Mhòr Fellowship after Màiri Mhòr nan Oran (Mary Macpherson), a Skye woman who wrote and sang Gaelic songs. They chose that name because they wanted a figurehead who represented the fight for Gaelic culture within the Highlands, and the strength of the people, and Màiri Mhòr filled the bill.

N: How did you go about mapping out the job from that blank canvas?

FM: First of all I contacted all of the schools in the area to try to gauge what sort of support there might be for offering something within the curriculum, whether or not they were Gaelic medium schools. I spoke to as many teachers and providers of music tuition as I could, and advertised within the Highland Council itself for people who might be interested in coming to community classes.

I then went out and visited schools, and I reckon I have been around about three-quarters of the schools in Highland Region now. However, I came to realise that was not the best way of utilising my time or my skills – it is great to have that element of personal contact, but it is not very time-efficient.

From that realisation we developed the Seinn o ho ro Seinn teaching package, which included a double CD. Every school in Highland got a copy of that, so that if it wasn’t practical for me to go to a particular school, they had a resource the teachers could use, and if they were keen, I could back that up with workshops or whatever.

N: But your work hasn’t been limited to schools?

FM: No, and it is not totally restricted to Highland Region, either. I had the discretion to do some work outside of the Highland Council area, and I gradually established a network of contacts in the arts world outside of the Council area that I could also offer Fellowship services to, working with festivals or other organisations.

I’ve worked extensively with Fèisean nan Gàidheal, for example, and one of the things that has developed that I didn’t necessarily expect is that I have become something of an international reference source for providing all kinds of information and contacts on Gaelic song. That has really taken off, and I am deluged with requests from all over the world now, which is an indication of the growing response to Gaelic song globally.

N: Have you done work with professional musicians through the Fellowship?

FM: As part of Education, Culture and Sport it has been more focused on school and community work, but I have had the opportunity to work with professionals, for example in the ‘Moch’s mi’g Èirigh …’ festival in Skye last year, which was a celebration of Màiri Mhòr nan Oran, and also in representing Highland Council at various events.

N: What changes have you seen in the six years of the Fellowship?

FM: Probably the biggest one has been the general rise in profile of Gaelic song throughout the Highlands, and a lot of that has been down to work done through things like the Youth Music Initiative and Fèisean nan Gàidheal. Song is definitely increasing in popularity in terms of young folk getting involved, and that has also been encouraged by the success of people like Karen Matheson and Julie Fowlis – it is seen as a lot cooler to sing now.

N: And as you pointed out in your review of Mary Ann Kennedy and Na Seòid’s show at Celtic Connections, it is even spreading to boys.

FM: Yes, even boys are showing more interest – I find in schools or whatever that I can engage their interest better if we are doing something like waulking songs where they can get physically involved as well, or if it ties in with a project they are doing on something like the Jacobites, where they can get dressed up and so on.

Even with Fionnar I found it quite hard initially to get young people interested in joining the group, but that has become much easier over time. There is definitely more interest in participation now, and it gives them opportunities that their peers don’t always get.

N: Anything that you haven’t managed to do as yet?

FM: I have lots of projects in my head that I would love to do. At the moment I’m working on a Gaelic Carol book in the wake of Duan Nollaig. There isn’t one currently in print, and I feel that will be very useful both to schools and just to people who would like to learn Gaelic songs. It will be accompanied by a CD of piano accompaniments.

I think Gaelic should be an important part of the year of Homecoming in 2009, and I would like to get some projects going in relation to that as well, depending on what happens with the post, of course. I hope that it will be seen that the model of the Fellowship does work and does produce results, and I would like to see other authorities take it up, whether it was for Gaelic or Scots or Doric.

N: What was your thinking in doing Duan Nollaig?

FM: It came about as a result of hundreds of requests I have had over the years from people looking for recordings of Gaelic carols or Christmas songs. They have not been an intrinsic part of the tradition – there are obviously hymns and psalms, but not really Carols as we know them. But there is a big demand for them, and no definitive collection. I know from my own experiences that teachers are also desperate to have material for Christmas, so it seemed appropriate, and also a chance to take the songs out to a new audience.

I went for a very experienced producer, Irvin Duguid, who freely admits he knew nothing about Gaelic, because I wanted someone with no preconceptions about what it should be, and he brought his own treatment to the songs. It has done very well, and I’m still getting a lot of enquires from all round the world from people asking where they can get it.

N: How did Highland 2007 impact on your work?

FM: It had a huge impact on my work, because despite what may have been said in other quarters, Gaelic was very much at the heart of the initiative, not just in the events, but within the team itself. I did some work for them, and all of them took Gaelic to their hearts and were doing weekly in-house lessons. In fact, Fiona Hampton’s son is attending Gaelic medium education, and she is doing the intensive Gaelic course.

I worked very closely with them over the three years, which meant I was able to help ensure that Gaelic song had a prominent profile. VisitScotland asked me to go to Tartan Week in New York, which was a great experience for me, and I was bowled over by the impact that the music had when were over there, and also in Lorient and in Holland. Music is often the first hook people have where Scotland is concerned, and certainly where Gaelic is concerned.

I got to meet some great people, and it has led to other projects, including one with Tsidii Le Loka, who is a well-known singer on Broadway, especially for her role in The Lion King. She is actually literally a princess, from Lethoso. We are working on a project to increase the profile of song in general, particularly with women and children.

N: How did you come to Gaelic yourself?

FM: Not as a native speaker. I was brought up in Moray, and my first real connection with Gaelic was when I needed a place at playgroup for my daughter Katie [a very accomplished clarsach player and singer in her own right – Ed.] in 1988, and the only one I could get her into was the Gaelic one. I started going to the parent and toddler classes, as you do, and from there it was a process of osmosis.

I sang some Scots songs at a fundraising cèilidh, and someone heard me and suggested I join the Gaelic choir – this would be 1995. By that time I had a few words of Gaelic, but not much, but I quickly felt a real connection with it, and went and did the immersion course in Gaelic at Inverness College from 1996 to 1998.

I then got a job at the Gaelic Medium school in Dingwall, and that was what really made my fluent, having to work through the language on a day-to-day basis. I really enjoyed teaching, and did that for four years before the Fellowship came up. I realised during that time that I wanted to make arts and music my direction, and I’m delighted that I have been able to maintain an element of teaching in what I do with the Fellowship.

N: How did you get started on performing?

FM: I started singing solo at the Mod – that would be 1996. My singing was very focused on the competitive circuit initially, and that gave me great experience in both performing and honing my Gaelic. It was really after I left college in 1998 that I started to step up the performing, aiming at the Gold Medal at the Mod [achieved in 2005 – Ed.] and also doing more gigs, often with Katie as accompanist.

From there it was a matter of expanding contacts and working with other musicians and so on, and I definitely want to continue to develop my profile as a solo performer. I love performing, and seem to have a good rapport with audiences – I think I have grown into that side of things.

N: You mention the Mod, which continues to come under fire in certain quarters – how important do you think it is in the current context of Gaelic song?

FM: The Mod is very important as far as young people are concerned, I think. Not everybody agrees with the competitive side of it, but it does give young people a platform, and the impetus to learn new material. I think children are naturally competitive, and they love being up there. Some parents are inclined to promote the kids more than they want to be, and I don’t agree with that, but the more youngsters that compete at the Mod the better, as far as I am concerned.

In terms of the big solo competitions, it gave me great experience as a performer, and it does help to form your artistic profile as well as you language skills. There is a lot to be done on the artistic side of the Mod – it has grown so much now that I think it needs to go down the road of having an artistic director to look after that side of it, as opposed to the competition elements. The Fringe at Lochaber last year was a definite step in the right direction. Like anything else, the Mod has to grow and adapt with the times.

N: Overall, then, are we in a healthy situation as far as Gaelic song is concerned?

FM: Ab-sol-ut-ely! I think it is in a really healthy situation now, and has never been more popular with youngsters in particular. The opportunities they have now are fantastic, and they are quick to take them up. There are more resources than ever before as well, with books and courses and internet lessons and all the rest of it. It is definitely on the up.

Fiona MacKenzie is organising a Gaelic Song Awareness Day at the Eastgate Centre in Inverness on 8 March.

© Kenny Mathieson, 2008

Links

• Fiona MacKenzie