Celtic Connections 2020 launched!

CELTIC CONNECTIONS 2020 launched!

16th Jan - 2nd Feb 2020

“That cross-cultural, interdisciplinary spirit is at the heart of Celtic Connections,”   

18 days of live music across Glasgow to warm our winter days!  The world’s premier celtic music festival 27^thyear, begun in 1994!  One-off musical collaborations, talks, workshops, film screenings, theatre productions, ceilidhs, exhibitions, free events, late-night sessions. Of traditional folk, roots, Americana, jazz, soul and world music. Celtic Connections brings together and celebrates special artistic collaborations. Many of the great innovations are brought about this way. 

GRIT orchestra Bothy Culture Hydro

**Opening concert the GRIT orchestra with new compositions -  “it is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom".   

Premiere for - 700^th anniversary of the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath: declaration of Scottish independence - by leading Scottish composers, commissioned for Celtic Connections and performed by the GRIT orchestra, legendary ensemble of folk, jazz and classical musicians and led by conductor Greg Lawson. Founded to continue the legacy of Martyn Bennett, who pioneered the fusion ofl folk with techno dance beats. Composers - Jazz-folk musicianFraser Fifield, cellist Rudi de Groote, Clarsach composer Catriona McKay, saxophonist Paul Towndrow, fiddlers Patsy Reid and Chris Stout. 

Lawson said the new work would interpret concepts of freedom expressed in the declaration within a modern context. “To be really free we need to be equal, we need to be diverse, we need to be open, we need to care.  You could say we are taking the declaration and turning it into an appeal: for tolerance, diversity, openness, respect. That's what freedom actually means." 

Niteworks

CONCERTS - A Celebration of Women in Piping  - Louise Mulcahy, Alana MacInnes, Síle Friel, Máire Ní Ghráda, Marion McCarthy, Enora Morice and Robyn Ada McKay.

Auld Lang Syne Burns celebration, with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra with Eddi Reader, Karen Matheson, Jarlath Henderson, Shona Donaldson.

Transatlantic Sessionsfestival favourite’s all-star line-up. Guitar virtuoso Tommy Emmanuel, Tennessee native Sierra Hull, multi-instrumentals Cahalen Morrison. Dervish lead vocalist Cathy Jordan and singer-songwriter Rachel Sermanni.

Transatlantic Sessions

**PLUS – Scottish music with Salsa Celtica, Braebach, Lau, Rura, Blazin fiddles, Mànran,Kinnaris, RANT, Hamish Napier, Sarah-Jane Summers. 

Americana music -  Iris De Ment, Sturgill Simpson, Anais Mitchell, The Lone Bellow, Frazey Ford, Della Mae, The Felice Brothers. 

CELTIC CONNECTIONS ALSO INLCUDES - BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year , Showcase Scotland, The Danny Kyle stage, and its education program. 

Talisk

Blue Rose Code

Rab Noakes

Aly Bain

TICKETS - https://www.celticconnections.com

Opening Concert Celtic Connections 2019 - Syne of the Times

The Celtic Connections opening night was a rousing concert with over a hundred young musicians on stage, to celebrate the passing traditions between the generations. They enjoyed a memorable experience of Gaelic music alongside some of Scotland’s most celebrated folk musicians.   

  

This opening concert began with a moving film by a young musician and composer from the isle of Grimsby - of his grandfather and father and his hope that the traditions and Gaelic can be passed on through the generations by preserving and celebrating our heritage and culture through music. 

After which we were treated to rousing tunes by the Celtic Galician folk orchestra Son De Seu. There are seven Celtic nations. This year Celtic Connections festival is paired with the small Celtic country of Galicia. 

Also performing were the Orkney youth musicians, HadHirgaan and the young musicians from the 5 Feisean, which is held annually around Scotland.

The evening was led by music director and fiddler Duncan Chisholm. Also appearing were Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis, fiddler Lauren MacColl,folk band Daimh, fiddler Aiden O”Rourke, piper Brighde Chaumbeu, and Donald Shaw (festival director) and his Harvest music. Celtic Connections also celebrates folk musicians who gained their success through attention at the festival.

I hope the young musicians were inspired by this memorable opening concert. 

What a first class experience for the young performers tonight. 

I don’t understand Gaelic, but I enjoy the Gaelic singers who perform each year at Celtic Connections. There is something magical about it and Gaelic song is very popular at Celtic. 

2018 was the year of the young people in Scotland, who I hope were encouraged to have their voices heard. 

“English is the universal language French the language of diplomacy but Gaelic is the language of the Gods."

Interesting. This year Celtic Connections festival is paired with the small Celtic country of Galicia. 

Galicia sits on the north west corner of Spain – and has had to fight for it autonomy..

They were controlled by Franco's dictatorship. Their democracy was restored when the legislature passed the Statute of Autonomy of 1981 approved in referendum and currently in force, providing Galicia with self-government. (Galicia has a population of 2.7 million)

Galicia, is an autonomous community in Spain’s northwest, is a verdant region with an Atlantic coastline. The cathedral of regional capital Santiago de Compostela is the reputed burial place of the biblical apostle Saint James the Great, and the destination for those following the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route. The western cliffs of Cape Finisterre were considered by the Romans to be the end of the known world.

‘Bothy Culture and Beyond’ Celtic Connections 2018

At a packed Glasgow Hydro, the audience was enthralled with a world premier performance of Martyn Bennett’s, Bothy Culture and Beyond, as part of Celtic Connections. The GRIT orchestra and was arranged and conducted by Greg Lawson.

Three years ago I went to the Celtic Connections opening concert Nae Regrets – and what a night it was!  The GRIT orchestra played Martyn Bennett’s first album (conducted by Lawson). Bennett composed Celtic fusion music that successfully mixed the old and the new, Celtic traditions along with electronic techno. He was known as the Techo Piper with his deadlocks and innovative playing. He sadly died young at 33 from Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He performed at Edinburgh Hogmanay and T in the Park.

Aerial dancers All or Nothing

*Lawson introduced the players and the stage was set for an outstanding performance of pipes, dance and celebration. He told us, “To find identity, we need different perspectives (all welcoming Scotland) to find truth and embrace difference, so both sides are enhanced and everyone is enriched – an evolution.”  As well as classical and jazz musicians the orchestra featured renowned folk fiddlers  - Duncan Chisholm, Aidan O’Rourke, Chris Stout, Megan Henderson, Sarah Jane Summers, Charlie McKerron, Eilidh Shaw and Laura Wilkie

This concert was full of ‘joie de vivre’ and the drama of Scotland’s landscapes, from its tallest peaks to its rushing waters and in-between the cultural melting pots of her vibrant cities. Bennet’s music tells of youth, the ancient stone hilltop Bothys along with the rich cultural voices he inherited from his mother, folklorist Margaret Bennett.

Many tracks transcended time and place. The concert began with the sweeping Orcadian Strip the Willow. Then the concert was brought alive visually by aerial dancers All or Nothing who shimmied on hoops and ropes for Aye. There was powerhouse brass and Celtic whistles with Shputnik in Glenshiel. While others tracks had the ‘get up and groove’ to the pipes, such as on Ud the Doudouk.

Fiona Hunter haunting vocals were followed by the Glasgow chapel choir, who were eerily ethereal on Blackbird, when ancient voices met contemporary vibes. At this point stunt cyclist Danny MacAskill rode on his mountain bike around a track laid out around the arena, and then on the Skye mountain backdrop behind the stage.  (His ride of the Black Cuillin Ridge Skye, is sound tracked by Bennett’s Blackbird , 55m Views YouTube).

On the moving track Hallaig, Sorley Maclean’s poem was read by the actor David Hayman -

“A wood going up beside the stream, Heartbreak of the tale.”

The crowd in the Hydro were all ages and danced and sang along to Bennett’s life-enhancing music. The set closed with the drama of the lone piper Finlay Macdonald for Waltz by Hector. 

Bennett challenged the norms – with whistles, brass, electronic beats and his chanter.

There were several web kent faces in the crowd  Well done to all the talented performers and to Bennett himself. This was the biggest audience I’ve seen at Celtic Connections and festival director Donald Shaw says he wants to focus on more larger scale productions.

Niteworks

**Skye outfit Niteworks played a blistering set of electronica meets  Gaelic voice to open the concert  - hypnotic. Ruairidh Graham, Allan MacDonald, Christopher Nicolson and Innes Strachan.

I’ve arrived at venues for sound checks when they are cold blue, empty – it’s a strange transformation. People gradually start to arrive – music is played as all changes to the vibrant joy and energy of reds and oranges. Those hilltops Bothys were like this too -  fires were lit, warm drinks were had and traditional songs were sung. It’s the all embracing warmth of the human connection and celebration. Why should we remember? Why does it matter? We live in glossy, shallow times. It’s important to look beyond – to seek truth.

What really matters in the end. On our journeys, over sea or land – to pause, to wonder, to seek renewals. To hope.. To seek shared human joy.  ‘Bothy Culture”

Seeking difference enhances perspective of who we are. ‘

Scotland does not want to silence ‘other’ voices but to embrace them – while we keep our rich heritage alive and well and so she sings for all. * I might have wished for more info on Martin Bennett himself with perhaps clips of him telling his colourful story in the interval before the GRIT performance.

(Scottish Independence is not about ‘identity’ – rather how we can embrace our past, have understanding and build a better Scotland for all.)

1.    "Aye?" (6:22)

2.    "Shputnik In Glenshiel" (5:50)

3.    "Hallaig" (8:19)

4.    "Ud The Doudouk" (5:44)

5.    "4 Notes" (5:55)

6.    "Joik" (3:26)

7.    "Yer Man From Athlone" (6:25)

8.    "Waltz For Hector" (9:20)

All or Nothing Aerial dance

Vocalist Innes Watson

Fiona Hunter vocals

Sorley Maclean’s poem, read by actor David Hayman

Martyn Bennett’s GRIT, Connections Connections 2015

We were treated to an outstanding Celtic Connections Opening Concert - 'Nae Regrets'

Highly innovative. Multi-talented, multi-layered orchestra. Put a smile on my face.

Martyn Bennett's 2003 GRIT was given its live premier with a colourful score by composer Greg Lawson and the concert proved one of the best events I've been to at Celtic Connections music festival.

Bennett was a Scottish musician and composer and the concert marked the tenth anniversary of his untimely death at the age of thirty-three - poignantly he wrote the album while he was dying of cancer. The album offers a musical journey - producing pounding bass rhythms, hesitant strings, gradual and also unexpected crescendos, brass epic grandeur, haunting Gaelic voices, thematic stirring pipes and also humour. The Grit album is about pushing the boundaries and limitations.

The orchestra of over 80 musicians on the Glasgow concert hall stage tonight consisted of mostly younger folk, jazz and classical musicians. I expect they enjoyed playing a new piece that felt contemporary yet drawing strongly on past traditions. 

Conductor Greg appeared overcome as he reached the summit tonight, after years in the planning and he commented that he needed a crash helmet as it felt like his head might explode!

  

I The first half was of songs from the Grit album and performed by a cast of accomplished Scottish singers - Quebec quartet LeVent Du Nord began with strong harmonies; followed by Fiona Hunter who sang Berry fields of Blair and Young Emslie with Mike Vass on guitar; Rab Noakes sang MacPherson's Rant and To Each and Everyone of You. Gaelic singer Isabel Ann Martin sang beautifully accompanied by Donald Shaw on piano.

II For the second half the full orchestra played the entire GRIT album. Even the word Grit produces earthy, real connotations. Lawson commented that folk music draws strongly on solid music roots, but  ike a river needs to play and experiment with those traditions in order not to stay stagnant and to be brought into the modern age.

On Blackbird male choral voices were brought into the modern age with dancing African drumbeats, resonating textures and bass beats. On the track Why there were soothing strings and clarinet along with Karen Matheson haunting voice. The Wedding track was heart breaking with hesitant, sad, subdued strings when a song breaks the stillness with happier times and then with a dynamic sax melody.  

Bennet's music shifted on its axis taking sound into new orbits - ground breaking and energizing. For anyone who thinks folk music is backward looking this concert was highly innovative with jazz, rock elements, classical, Gaelic songs, MORE!  I have never seen an orchestra bobbing up and down and enjoying themselves so much - especially all those eight double bass players!

Only a few concerts put a smile on your face but this one did!

Bennett - ‘Try and find those things that make us Scottish. They are not necessarily tartan, but are no less colorful. They are in the sound of the kick drum, the bass line, the distortion, the punk guitar, the break-beat. Try and see the old ways in new surroundings.‘

'This album was a chance for me to present a truthful picture, yet face my own reflection in the great mirror of all cultures.’
http://www.martynbennett.com

In the studio, he traversed and transcended boundaries, of multiple levels, from that of image – as ‘the dreadlocked piper’ – to those of genre, art-form and audience.

PS Renowned traditional Scottish folk singer Dick Gaughan decided to withdraw from the concert as it was being filmed by the BBC and due to his feeling strongly that the BBC bias during the referendum was intolerable for him.  He is performing his own concert during Celtic –
 'Scots music has never sounded like this before. No music has ever sounded like this before’ Mojo

GRIT Track listing

1.      'Move' – 4.10 Minutes

2.      'Blackbird' – 6.10 Minutes

3.      'Chanter' – 4.10 Minutes

4.      'Nae Regrets' – 3.50 Minutes

5.      'Liberation' – 4.20 Minutes

6.      'Why' – 4.30 Minutes

7.      'Ale House' – 3.50 Minutes

8.      'Wedding' – 5.45 Minutes

9.      'Rant' – 4.31 Minutes

10.   'Storyteller' – 9.39 Minutes

Filmed by the BBC the concert will be shown 22nd January 9pm - 

Here’s a BBC slip of Chanter  -  http://www.bbc.co.uk/martynbennettegrit

Music journalist Sue Wilson is presently writing Bennett’s autobiography.