Lochgoilhead, 10 January 2009

RSAMD students performing at Lochgoilhead

ELEVEN Third Year students from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glagsow played to an enthusiastic packed house at a special community concert in Lochgoilhead.

The concert was put on free by Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop to thank the community and previous concert goers for their support, and to celebrate the public accolades the Workshop has recently received. The audience had braved inclement weather and flooding, but were in for a real treat!

As well as Scottish students, including Argyll talent from Dunoon and Mull, there were also musicians from Canada, and Australia, showing the enormous draw that the RSAMD course has around the world.

What was a little disturbing to someone of my age was the precocious talent on show on the night, and the high degree of recognition some of them have already achieved. Within the group there were Dunoon piper Douglas Henderson with his band TNT, Danny Kyle Award winners at Celtic Connections on 2007, and bodhran player Marissa Vachon, who has already produced four CDs!

Of course the important thing about a concert like this is not who has or hasn’t won awards, but the sheer enthusiasm and freshness of the performance. It is a rare opportunity for rural residents and visitors to see eleven musicians of any age playing such a wide range of instruments. The concert included a mix of Gaelic and Scots song, as well as accordion sets, pipe sets, flute group pieces and ensemble playing. In addition there were clarsach, keyboards, bodhran, banjo and tin whistle players.

These concerts do not feature the professionalism of touring bands, as they have minimal rehearsal time. The concert, particularly the first half, had the air of an old-fashioned ceilidh, where different musicians and recitalists perform for a community audience in turn.

This was actually a positive in terms of the audience’s reaction, as we warmed to their cheerful and relaxed stage personas. (We loved the cheeky recital about the wee bird who died from falling in the s…t.)

There was consternation when one of the two lead singers was taken violently ill as they went on stage. She was able to return after the interval, but had been programmed intensively into the first few sets. The programme was rearranged in the blink of an eyelid – or maybe two blinks – and off they went. So well done, RSAMD – a steep learning curve!

The ensemble also suffered at times from a lack of fiddlers (only one in the group), but then Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop audiences do tend to notice these things. However, the balance of instruments being studied is in the hands of the gods each year, and the students delivered a fine and engaging performance, which augurs well for them as professional musicians, and for the future of traditional music.

Details of future concerts and events around Cowal can be found at the the Fiddle Workshop website (see below).

© Mark Morpurgo, 2009

Links

• Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop
• RSAMD