Sgoil Chiùil na Gaidhealtachd CD Launch Concert
16 Dec 2008 in Highland, Music
Plockton High School, Plockton, 13 December 2008
STUDENTS at Sgoil Chiùil na Gaidhealtachd (the National Centre of Excellence in Traditional Music) launched their latest CD in fine style when a capacity audience converged on Plockton High School from as far afield as East Kilbride, Edinburgh, Oban and Ullapool.
Three Cheese and a Teaburger is the Centre’s ninth annual album (and yes, they all have quirky titles!) This one includes the fruits of what director Dougie Pincock called “possibly the year’s most exciting event for us – the development, in partnership with Trinity/Guildhall College, of a set of performance-based exams for traditional music”.
If that seems a less-than-entertaining prospect, set the thought aside. I got my double CD at the concert and both discs are already in danger of wearing out. Students form their own bands – Faulty Dynamite, Connect 4, Out of Bounds, Jiggered – and they’re all recorded here. In addition, they put on between 30 and 40 performances throughout the year, and their music is as colourful as the band names.
Saturday’s concert was a chance to hear some of it. Four pipers set the pace with a selection of foot-tapping tunes. The S2 pupils of Dead Stop were the youngest band of the evening, comprising guitar, fiddles, clarsach, and singer Mairi Hawthorn, whose strong, clear Gaelic was a hint of the quality to come. There are clearly some seriously good voices at Sgoil Chiuil this year.
Instrumental pieces predominated after the interval, the senior bands showing their confidence as performers. There were many inventive instrumental combinations. The most effective had to be an arrangement by the band Four o’Clockitis of ‘Sarah’s Song’, a slow air by Phil Cunningham. Small pipes, accordian, clarsach, and piano – with contributions from whistle and fiddle – were joined by a cello, which gave this beautiful piece an extraordinary depth.
Sometimes it’s hard to believe that these musicians are still in their teens, but they all have traditional music at the heart of them. The range and quality of talent at Sgoil Chiùil na Gàidhealtachd is astonishing. Plockton High School rector, Duncan Ferguson, described the evening’s entertainment as “strictly brilliant traditional music,” and he was right.
Three Cheese and a Teaburger is available from the National Centre of Excellence for Traditional Music, price £15 for the double CD. Tel 01599 544706 Email: dougie.pincock@highland.gov.uk
© Terry Williams, 2008