Fèis Rois Ceilidh Trail

21 Aug 2012 in Gaelic, Highland, Music, Showcase

The Ironworks, Inverness, 18 August 2012

THIS year’s Trad Trails, organized and run by Fèisean nan Gàidheal, came to a blistering conclusion at the Ironworks venue in Inverness on Saturday, when twelve of the young musicians from two of the Trails joined forces on stage to give us a rousing set.

ANOTHER five musicians were meantime bringing their Trail to a grand end over in Portsoy: a reminder that over the past six weeks or so, seventeen young people have taken our tradional music literally from one end of the county to the other – from Lochmaddy to London, from Cambridge to Carinish, writes Angus Peter Campbell.

Féis Rois Ceilidh Trailers at the Ironworks (© Fèis Rois)

Féis Rois Ceilidh Trailers at the Ironworks (© Fèis Rois)

These Trad Trails are now established in the calendar and give young people a wonderful opportunity not only to play music together, but to earn their stage craft and to learn from real experience what it’s like to tour round the country in a van as a ‘professional’ musician. This year’s Trail Tours were essentially organised by the indefatigable Fiona Dalgety, who is due an Olympian Gold Medal for the work she’s done with these youngsters.

Saturday’s concert saw the seven musicians from the Local Fèis Rois Ceilidh Trail take the the stage for the first half: Siannie Moodie from Conon Bridge on clàrsach; Robbie Greig from Edinburgh on fiddle, bodhran and voice; Becky Griggs from Gairloch on fiddle; Scott Duncan from Newtonmore on pipes and whistle; Innes White from Dingwall on guitar, mandolin and voice; Kaitlin Ross from Hill of Fearn on guitar and voice; and Megan MacKay from Tain on guitar.

They gave us a splendid range of music, with some lovely singing, and some excellent playing on the clarsach from Siannie Moodie, great tunes from Scott Duncan, and some very mature instrumentation from Innes White. What they perhaps lacked was a bit more of ‘presence’ and authority on the stage: that of course only comes through age and experience. The very thing which Fèisean nan Gàidheal is working hard to give them.

Tha second half of the concert was taken up by the more mature National Trad Trails group, who commanded the stage with musicality, and gave us a wonderful range of songs, tunes and stories. I particularly enjoyed Alasdair Paul telling us about his school music teacher who “kept insisting that ¾ time was exclusively a Waltz and couldn’t possibly be a March. Even though you’d just come from your piping lesson and had just learned one there! Were we hallucinating or something?” No Alasdair – your suspicions are right, that sometimes formal educationalists do their best to constrain, and take the spirit out of the music.

But what spirited playing from these five – Alasdair Paul himself, from Aultbea on guitar; Steaphanaidh Chaimbeul from Skye on clàrsach and voice; Eilidh Ramsay from Jamestown on fiddle and voice (as well as step-dancing); Sally Simpson from Portobello on fiddle; and Ali Levack from Maryburgh on pipes and whistles.

Steaphanaidh and Eilidh both gave us Gaelic songs – ‘Òran an t-Saighdear’ from Steaph and ‘Gura Tu Mo Bhean Chomain’ from Eilidh – while Sally Simpson’s fiddling was a delight. I especially enjoyed the duos played by Alasdair Paul and Ali Levack, who clearly demonstrated why he is rated as one of the very finest young pipers in Scotland.

I would have liked to have been in Portsoy too, where I’m sure the other young people gave an equally fine ceilidh. But you can’t be everywhere. Which leads me to asking: where really were all these people in Inverness last Saturday night, because these fine young musicians deserved a bigger audience? I know this is not the first time this issue has been raised (nor the last), but surely our young tradition bearers deserve better from the so-called capital of the Highlands?

I know from speaking to the young musicians that they had good audiences in some places – Cambridge and Edinburgh was good and as far as I could hear from them they were especially praising the Galloway area of south-west Scotland where folk really came out to give them great support.

But though last Saturday was the formal last night of the current Trad Trails, they can be seen and heard again soon – principally at the Grand Finale of the Blas Festival in Eden Court Theatre on Saturday 15th September. This reviewer will also be there that night, wearing one of my other bunnets as a poet: but despite that, come along and hear these excellent young musicians. And others.

© Angus Peter Campbell, 2012

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