SUE WILSON reflects on the lessons to be drawn for Scottish musicians from the Womex world music convention in Gateshead
SINCE ITS FABLED invention as a marketing strap-line by a […] ]]>
Inverness Airport Restaurant, 10 September 2012EVEN looking across its younger generational stratum, today’s folk scene often still appears a largely male-dominated realm, so the affirmative action embodied by […] ]]>
Belladrum, near Beauly, Inverness-shire, 3-4 August 2012EVEN as the country’s lower reaches found themselves inundated once again, northern Scotland’s enviable track-record for festival weather this summer […] ]]>
Lews Castle, Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, and other venues, 11-14 July 2012WITH ticket sales up by 7% on last year, and merchandise by a whacking 38%, the 17th Hebridean Celtic Festival was rated by many regulars […] ]]>
Inshriach Estate, by Aviemore, 15-17 June 2012GIVEN that the concept of combining music and sport was partly what put paid to the Outsider festival – inadvertent parent to the contrastingly bijou and successful […] ]]>
Various venues, Orkney, 31 May-3 June 2012TO SAY that Orkney’s 30th folk festival was celebrated in suitably splendid style would be a somewhat gargantuan understatement.
AS THE event’s director, Bob Gibbon, […]
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CCA, Glasgow, 26 May 2012SINCE 2004, Ceòl ’s Craic (“music and banter”) has been a social and cultural home from home for expat Gaels in Glasgow, combining elements of club, concert and ceilidh to showcase […] ]]>
Shetland, 3-6 May 2012AS THE Lovin’ Spoonful’s John Sebastian once observed, reflecting on the travelling musician’s lifestyle, “If you ever wonder why we ride the carousel/We do it for the stories we can […] ]]>
SUE WILSON reflects on the lessons to be drawn for Scottish musicians from the Womex world music convention in Gateshead
SINCE ITS FABLED invention as a marketing strap-line by […] ]]>
Broadford Airfield, Isle of Skye, 23-24 March 2012 EVEN after 19 years of its parent festival in Glasgow, now securely ranked among the world’s top music events, the Celtic Connections Big Top on Skye still represented a considerable leap in the dark. WHILE the idea of an outdoor satellite event beyond the city has been mooted for […]
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Clickimin Centre, Lerwick, Shetland, 3 February 2012 IT MIGHT seem a totally insane idea, transporting the entire 17-strong line-up for Celtic Connections’ flagship Transatlantic Sessions concerts all the way up to play in Shetland, in between their two sellout dates in Glasgow – not least since the festival’s artistic director, Donald Shaw, was…[Read more]
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Perth Concert Hall, 3 December 2011 HIGHLANDS and Islands artists once again featured prominently among the winners in this year’s ninth Scots Trad Music Awards. THE event was attended by around 900 movers, shakers and supporters of Scottish folk music in all its manifestations, who made another mighty night of it in Perth. Coinciding with the…[Read more]
]]>LAGAVULIN, Laphroaig, Bruichladdich, Bowmore, Ardbeg: not just the litany of legendary single malts treasured by whisky-lovers worldwide, but also the locations, in both distilleries and village halls, for most of the concerts making up the Islay Jazz Festival.
Jointly promoted by Jazz Scotland and…[Read more]
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Glengarry Community Hall, Invergarry, 14 September 2011 EVENTS like this one fully exemplify that the Blas festival’s strapline of Moladh na Gàidhealtachd – Celebrating the Highlands – is much more than some glib branding exercise. Staged in his local village hall – in the area that his father’s side of the family have called home since Culloden […]
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Badenoch Centre, Kingussie, 13 September 2011 WHILE songs in English have featured less in Capercaillie’s repertoire over recent years, lead vocalist Karen Matheson has steadily broadened their inclusion among her solo material, here performing several newly-arranged contemporary covers and a traditional Child ballad – works-in-progress for her…[Read more]
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Inverness Airport, Inverness, 12 September 2011 REFLECTING the allied home-grown and international nature of Blas itself, the festival’s resident band for 2011, The Outside Track, comprises two Scottish members, harper Ailie Robertson and accordionist Fiona Black; two from Canada – Cape Breton fiddler Mairi Rankin and Vancouver-born…[Read more]
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Strathpeffer Pavilion, 11 September 2011 HAVING kicked off its silver jubilee year with a big celebratory extravaganza at Celtic Connections in January, Fèis Rois continued the festivities with a rejigged line-up and format for this Blas festival showcase. THE eponymous “Roots and Shoots” denoted the dozen or so leading professional musicians –…[Read more]
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Empire Theatre, Eden Court, Inverness, 10 September 2011 BAGPIPE music enthusiasts come in many different shades of predilection (and aversion), but all would surely have found something to enjoy in this year’s Blas festival piping night – a considerable achievement in itself. SETTING the bar resplendently high was a magisterial opening set from…[Read more]
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Phipps Hall, Beauly, 9 September 2011 THERE aren’t many music festivals, let alone ones whose budget seems inversely proportional to their geographical spread, which could lay on the world première of a specially-commissioned feature film, created by and integrated with live music from one of today’s leading Celtic acts – but that’s what this…[Read more]
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SUE WILSON investigates what connects this year’s Blas festival, Peter and the Wolf and the Curriculum For Excellence? THE answer is The Boy and the Bunnet , an ambitious new musical production that will première during Blas at Eden Court Theatre (with another performance at Celtic Connections next year), and aims to introduce children to…[Read more]
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Hebridean Celtic Festival, Isle of Lewis, 13-16 July 2011 WITHOUT implying any slight on previous Hebridean Celtic Festivals, this year’s 16th gathering – customarily a milestone birthday – really felt like an event that had come of age. Having attracted some of the best UK and international acts on today’s increasingly diverse folk/roots scene,…[Read more]
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THE HEBRIDEAN CELTIC FESTIVAL continues to go from strength to strength, with 2011’s line-up headed by the all-conquering KT Tunstall. HAVING just been nominated as Best Large Festival in the forthcoming Scottish Event Awards – for its record-breaking 15th outing last year – the festival is substantially augmented by the addition of a second…[Read more]
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Various venues, Shetland, 28 April-1 May 2011 IT’S long been customary at folk gigs for the performers, approaching the end of their set, to thank those involved in staging the event – organisers, sound engineers, venue staff and so on. Perhaps only at the Shetland Folk Festival, though, will you hear gratitude particularly expressed to “the ladies […]
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HIGHLAND fiddler Duncan Chisholm has been a prominent figure on the Scottish folk scene for more than 20 years. He co-founded Wolfstone, still one of the world’s leading folk-rock outfits, in 1988, and continues with them to this day. IN the interim, he’s also featured in both Blazin’ Fiddles and Session A9, before joining Gaelic singing star […]
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Teviot Row House, Edinburgh, 15 April 2011 HIGHLIGHTING the increased opportunities and developmental infrastructure now available for folk-based musicians to spread their compositional wings, Edinburgh harpist Ailie Robertson’s new instrumental suite, Traditional Spirits , began life as a short piece written (aptly enough, given its title and…[Read more]
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Perth Concert Hall, Perth, 4 December 2010 AFTER MUCH advance consternation about whether the show would or should go on, and if so what proportion of the audience and performers could get there, the 2010 Scots Trad Music Awards serendipitously coincided with a two-day relative respite in the weather – enough to see everyone safely home again […]
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Ceòl ‘s Craic, CCA, Glasgow, 20 November 2010 CONSIDERING the extent of the MacDonald Sisters’ fame in their 1960s and 70s heyday, it’s strange that this groundbreaking Gaelic girl-group has been so widely forgotten, outwith their own Hebridean generation. They predated Na h-Òganaich, who are still cherished as seminal pioneers of the…[Read more]
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Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, 12-14 November 2010 THE ANNUAL Scots Fiddle Festival’s 15th year was a good one in which to roll out an especially strong programme, as Edinburgh’s historic Assembly Rooms, which have housed the event since its inception, are soon to close for an 18-month refurbishment. With the festival having evolved to fill that…[Read more]
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Exploring the Bluegrass Connection SUE WILSON caught up with Uist piper Fred Morrison ahead of the launch of his third solo recording, Outlands THE GREAT Scottish piper Fred Morrison – a former member of Clan Alba and Capercaillie, and seven-times winner of the prized Macallan Trophy at Brittany’s Lorient Festival – has recently been exploring…[Read more]
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Falkland, Fife, 25-26 July 2009 ORIGINALLY conceived in response to the G8 summit at Gleneagles in 2005, the Big Tent Festival has since grown into a sizeable fixture on Scotland’s summer calendar, this year welcoming nearly 10,000 day and weekend visitors through the gates, despite the rain rendering conditions decidedly boggy on the Sunday. …[Read more]
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Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, 15-18 July 2009 IN ITS 14th year, the Hebridean Celtic Festival weathered something approaching a perfect storm of adversity. The clouds that gathered weren’t least of the literal variety, starting with those that dropped a prodigious four-hour downpour over Stornoway on Thursday afternoon – just as the massive blue…[Read more]
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Various venues, Orkney, 21-24 May 2009 IT CAN BE easy to forget, as a visiting audience member, the massive jigsaw of human resources and organisational logistics – slotted together entirely by volunteer effort – that underpins an event like the Orkney Folk Festival. This year’s programme comprised around 25 concerts over four days, featuring a…[Read more]
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Various venues, Shetland, 30 April-3 May 2009 WITH VIRTUALLY all of its 21 main programme concerts sold out – many within days of the box office opening – the 29th Shetland Folk Festival notched up yet another resounding success. Unusually, too, for a Scottish island festival, the vast bulk of those 5000-plus tickets were snapped up […]
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Main Auditorium, Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, 30 January, 2009 NOWADAYS extended over two swiftly sold-out nights, the Transatlantic Sessions concerts have been a mainstay of Celtic Connections’ programme since the festival’s earliest years, borrowing their name and concept from the BBC Scotland TV series, first broadcast in 1994. The ongoing…[Read more]
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ABC, Glasgow, 16 January 2009 THE conventional wisdom about concert audiences’ preference for familiar material was emphatically defied by a near-capacity turnout for this Celtic Connections show, a double bill of recently-formed Scottish outfits whose sole stock-in-trade is new original songs. Admittedly, both have something of the supergroup…[Read more]
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Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, 15 January 2009 In keeping with this year’s Homecoming Scotland promotion, Celtic Connections 2009 kicked off with an extensive line-up of artists from Cape Breton island in Nova Scotia, where the musical traditions carried by thousands of mostly Gaelic-speaking Scottish emigrants during the 18th and 19th centuries…[Read more]
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Leith Folk Club, The Village, Edinburgh, 16 December 2008 A NEWISH vocal trio co-founded by two émigré Highlanders, Lochaber-born Kaela Rowan and Lewis native Heather Macleod, with Edinburgh’s Lindsey Black, the Bevvy Sisters draw on a collective wealth of musical experience, having worked individually with outfits as diverse as the Andy Gunn…[Read more]
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Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow, 6 December 2008 WHILE A lively debate continues as to the pros and cons of the Scots Trad Music Awards – supporters applauding the organisers’ aim of media-friendly profile-raising; opponents deploring the very concept of competitive prizes for musical endeavour – there’s no disputing that the event provides the…[Read more]
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Various venues, 5-13 September 2008 Launched in 2005, the Blas festival is still a youngster by folk-scene standards, but the success of this year’s fourth programme clearly attests to its impressive strategic maturity. Even the barest logistical sketch of that programme would send most event planners running for the hills – or maybe away from…[Read more]
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Cherry Hinton Hall, Cambridge, 31 July – 3 August 2008 THE 44TH wasn’t the sunniest of Cambridge Folk Festivals, but the intermittent rain never threatened any serious mud, and the prevailing mood remained as benignly clement as ever. Underpinning this celebrated mellow atmosphere, which unites a crowd of all ages – literally from tiny babies to […]
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Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, 16-19 July 2008 ANY ADVANCE superstitious anxieties among the organisers of the 13th Heb Celt festival were comprehensively laid to rest by another mightily successful weekend – even if it was immediately preceded by storm-force gales midweek, resulting in a somewhat frantic scramble to get the big tent up and rigged in […]
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Eigg, 13-15 June 2008 IN AMONGST the 300-400 celebrants who annually descend on Eigg for the anniversary of its 1997 community buyout, there’s always a bemused sprinkling of bird-watchers and day-trippers, wondering what on earth happened to their promised haven of Hebridean tranquility. Anyone seeking to escape the madding crowd on Eigg that…[Read more]
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Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, 23 May 2008 FORMED WAY back in 1994, Skye’s Peatbog Faeries now rank among the veterans of contemporary Celtic fusion, but far from slackening off or falling behind their younger contenders, they’re sounding mightier than ever. A typically thin Queen’s Hall turnout once again highlighted the venue’s woeful marketing of…[Read more]
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Various venues, Shetland, 1-4 May 2008 A FEW YEARS ago, before she went solo, Karine Polwart came to the Shetland Folk Festival as lead singer with Malinky, an experience that directly inspired her song ‘Follow the Heron Home’, whose chorus – “By night and day, we’ll sport and we’ll play/And delight as the dawn dances over […]
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