This newsletter comes to you straight from my first day on my brand new computer!!! ..after fighting the inevitability of the computer age I have succumbed, and at long last I have the time, and the hardware to sit leisurely and tell you all my news.
As usual, it has been a while since my last newsletter, and looking at my timetable for the last half a year it doesn't surprise me that I have not had time to do it life has been busy and very exciting! 2000 was an amazing year as it enabled me to do what I love the most, having huge variety in my work. Take a deep breath .here we go!
April 2000 saw me once more teaching all the young fiddlers at Alps Youth Gaitherin, and as usual my class of fiddlers were adorable
Last year was also a great year for getting home to Shetland. I usually try to get home on a regular basis, to see my mum, brother and friends, and the first of several trips home in 2000 was to play at the Shetland folk festival with my trio with David Milligan on piano and Conrad Ivitsky on bass. It's always a thrill to play at home to your own folks! A highlight definitely had to be the big Saturday night concert at the Clickamin sports centre and looking out to a sea of "well kent" faces all smiling and supporting one of their own. culture shock!
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Catriona with Balta Tonjnvs Fiddler Kevin Wimmer
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At home during the Shetland Folk Festival
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At home with Aim'ee Leonard and Baby Sollly
McLeod (The Golden Child)
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Another highlight would have to be the after party or aftermath at the end of the festival, where still wearing a bright orange pair of breeks, local fiddle band Fiddlers Bid and I could be seen playing tunes and dancing with people out to get their shopping at 11am on Lerwick`s Commercial Street. A great all day session was had in the Lounge ..brilliant! My next trip to Shetland was soon after in May, this time to help with the initial training of local music teachers who were to be involved with the "On the Line" project. We had great fun learning all the repertoire and many of the teachers were my own age, several of whom used to be in Shetland's Young Heritage with me, it was all a bit surreal, but so encouraging to see the positive reaction to this project
"On the Line" is a millennium project for children who are connected by living on or near the meridian line. The projects aim was to learn about each other's traditional music via a local musician, in Shetland's case me, and local music teacher Alison Leslie.
lWe taught the teachers the repertoire, who in turn work with the schools, and at the end of the year musicians from each of the 5 areas involved Shetland, Northumberland, France, Spain, West Africa travel to each of the countries, and create workshops with the children and a final concert to show and share what they have learned in the year. Unfortunately, I came back from this trip to Shetland to find a house disaster! My washing machine had been pumping out hot water for a week and the next 6 months were spent trying to get my home back to rights, in between gigs that is!!!
`On the Line` was the idea of Channel 4 newsreader Jon Snow who, looking to do something in schools to mark the millennium, came up with the idea of joining children from various countries along the meridian line, as they would all go into the 21st century at the exact same moment.
Are you still with me? keep breathing!!!!!!
Blazin Fiddles toured with the Highland festival at the end of May and we also launched our first CD called "fire on!", out on Blazin Records and available via www.blazin-fiddles.com It's always a pleasure to play music with great people and also in some of the most beautiful parts of Scotland.
Our last gig was in Thurso, right up on the north edge of Scotland and I had the nightmare overnight journey of getting from there to Tobermory in Mull, to work on my next job at the islands arts centre, An Tobar, working on a brand new piece of music commissioned by Gordon McLean, and composed by the fantastic Scottish harpist Corinna Hewitt. It was called "photons in vapour" and featured myself, Corrina, the sax of Phil Bancroft, piano, percussion and the mull women's choir. It was premiered at An Tobar and performed a second time at the Station Hotel in Inverness.
Next I travelled to St Pierre d`Aurrilac in Bordeaux, France for the first "On the Line" final event. This concert was part of an already established summer festival for flutes (fifres) and drums ..some lovely children took part and much of the time was spent eating and drinking the local red wine by the bucket load!
The longest night of the millennium was spent in a place that never gets dark up in the Norwegian Arctic Circle in a beautiful place called Harsta, where I shared a concert with Annbjorg Lien and Eliza Carthy. I played this time with David Milligan and was also joined on percussion by Donald " drummy " Hay, and Canadian jazz bassist Tom Lyne. when the organisers took all the artists out on a wooden sailing ship to see the midnight sunTom proved to be a champion line fisherman , and complete with gin and tonic and fish soup . It was quite the experience!
The rest of the summer months were very busy with Blazin` Fiddles playing many of the biggest British summer festivals. I got to visit my lovely 83-year-old grandmother, and see some of my close relatives at the Isle of Lewis` Hebridean Festival. The Blazers also played Cambridge folk festival ( don't mention caravans! ), and we did a daytime arena performance at Sidmouth Folk Festival.
My yearly summer school at Burwell House in Cambridgeshire was as usual great, meeting new friends and old.
Please look at my fiddle workshops web page and you'll hear the news relating to this year's workshop. For all the regulars please note that I will be teaching at Folkworks in Durham on the same week this year, and it would be great to see some of you there! one fingered typing arghhhhhhh!!!! In August my trio played " Fiddle Affair " at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall it was lovely to see so many people there even in the middle of summer.
At the end of the month, I went for a whirlwind visit to Tonder festival. There were lots of great players there including Wolfstone, Sharron Shannon, and the Bumblebees so you can imagine a lot of fun went on all night long. I also witnessed the Danish delicacy which consisted of old boiled eggs in brine that were halved and filled with every kind of condiment known to man! mmm no thanks!
Back home in September, the Blazin Fiddles set out on our second Highland tour of the year. A few highlights: the beauty of Achiltibuie and the warmth of the audience up North in Strathy (three years ago it had been our very first gig together as a band and it was well worth the second visit!)
Another trip home to Shetland to teach "on the line" tunes and dances to children in schools including in my old primary school, Bells Brae Primary School in Lerwick. It was amazing to see the reaction from local children to the "On the Line" repertoire. They were by now, dying to meet all the different musicians from the project and were working up a frenzy with the material. I was at this stage getting really excited myself about the final "On the Line " events that were to take up the most of the rest of my year.
But before that a trip to Cape Breton and my second visit to the fabulous Celtic Colours Festival.
Blazin Fiddles had a great in the land of the fiddle and in one of our concerts in Wycogmagh we were joined for the encore by fiddle legend Buddy Mac Master and pianist Joey Beaton. It was such an honour. Joey even shared the piano keyboard with the mad Blazers pianist Andy Thorburn what a picture that was!
We met with some great old friends and as always at this time of the year in Cape Breton, the maple trees were turning every shade of red you could imagine ..coming from a treeless island it is just the opposite end of the woodland spectrum. However the great music making, characters and craic really reminded me of Shetland in so many ways. . nearly there!!
Late October saw the start of the "On the Line" spectacular final events, starting first at home in Shetland. I'm so proud that we managed to reach about 80% of Shetland children in primary 6 &7 the event was held over two days. The first day saw 600 children all coming for a huge workshop in the local sports centre at Clickamin. A tear was in my eye as I saw the joy and excitement on the faces of the bairns, especially when Africans Mama and Salif took to the stage. They were given a rock star welcome and were inundated for autograph signing after the workshop.
The next event was an evening concert at Clickamin for 800 children and parents, who I'm sure, had been wondering what their kids had been learning in this project.
The concert had a real local flavour with several of Shetland's fiddle groups with their teachers taking to the stage. One such band, The Young Tradition along with their teacher Bernadette Porter, were joined by Salif on djembe for an impromptu Jam on stage I don't think it will be the last time this combination of fiddles and drum will be seen in Shetland, such was the reaction of the crowd. The most brilliant moment however for me, was to see Mama persuading a usually shy Shetland audience to get on their feet and join in clapping and dancing to an African Song. She also asked all the bairns to come forward to the front, and I don't think even she expected the wave of eager children who sprinted to the front to perform with her.
November Ireland tour.lovely folks, music, students,views,guiness,mairead and Dermot, Dublin friends. Mighty!!!
Fiddle 2000 Playing to and with hundreds of fiddle players ..magic! Next stop, "On the Line" in Northumberland! This part of the project saw us working with 3000 children in a couple of days .with a sit down sing along in a theatre, to dancing all the dances in a Local sports centre. By now we were truly in the swing of things and waiting with bated breath for our visit to West Africa and the region of Burkina Faso. It was really everything I had imagined and a lot more. We were working with Mama's youth theatre group WAMDE full of vibrant youngsters from 4-20years old. I took the time to write some descriptions along the way of my memories of this fabulous country. Also here are some pictures of my trip.
Burkina Faso A hot, dry, red and dusty land. Women with huge parcels of gravity-defying allsorts on their heads. Fabulous plaited hairstyles and bright batiks. Kermit green taxis. Beautiful ebony skin and huge welcoming smiles. Being sung Happy Birthday to by a school yard full of Burkinabe children. Vultures in the sky, crocodiles in dusty lakes, donkeys and turtledoves everywhere. Coca-Cola drunk like water. Trees with vanilla pods set against a huge winter moon. Men lying in the baking hot sun. Groups of women gathered with cooking bowls, and babies wrapped tightly to their bodies with beautiful brightly printed material.
After the wonders of Burkina, the adventure continued as we made our last " On the Line "trip to Barcelona in Catalonia. A beautiful, stylish city that stunned me with its architecture and was made perfect by the arrival of my mum, Alice. We really "did" Gaudi, my mum is a huge fan of his buildings and her knowledge acquired from many books borrowed from the Lerwick library during a long Shetland winter. She knew more than many a Barca tourist guide and it was gorgeous to see the look on her face as the pages of her book came to life. A fantastic end to an incredible year.
So, I`m still in the process of catching up with you, and myself! The next instalment is due soon, after I`ve been on tour in England for the rest of May. Hope life is good with you where ever you are in the world, and that our paths will cross in 2001.
Thanks for your interest and support
