Celtic Connections: This was a real labour of love for Lewis-based musician Calum Martin, who has re-recorded his 1983 concept album, about one Donald Morrison, a native of Megantic, Quebec.
Star rating:
****
Lev Atlas was right. The music his fellow violinist Oleg Ponomarev composes with guitarist Nigel Clark for their trio, Koshka, does lend itself to expansion. What’s more, Koshka can take on an extra 37 members and still retain the trio’s essential fire and personality.
Star rating:
****
If ever there was a gig that tried to pour a gallon of fine music into a pint-pot slot, this was it. Instead of your usual support act/main attraction line-up, there were five distinctive female "voices" all claiming our ears and sending us off to the foyer’s CD stall to forage for more.
Star rating:
***
Proponents of the theory that the Celts who settled in Brittany originated in the Asian subcontinent would find much to support their claims in the opening band in this survey of the current Breton scene.
Star rating:
**
It was a little disappointing to feel so sort-changed by a band of the calibre of Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings. Here was a group of musicians who, had they been allowed to stretch themselves, could have provided an evening to remember.
Star rating:
****
The billing of Saturday’s concert was something of a misnomer. By the end of the show, Alison Brown’s Quartet had grown to a 12-piece, making the stage as busy as Sauchiehall Street on a Saturday afternoon.
Star rating:
***
This sold-out show confirmed that, over three years since the last Mull Historical Society album, and in spite
of their uneven live shows, there is still much affection for the songs of Colin MacIntyre, now trading under his own name.
Star rating:
***
It was a mark of confidence that Michelle Shocked, during her first number, invited – and received – ecstatic audience participation. And so it went for the first half-dozen songs, this generous singer/songwriter seemingly enjoying the audience singing and clapping along to her home-spun tunes. It was quite the hootenanny.
Star rating:
***
Having reached a level of of both peer and public acclaim for her work in a recording career that has spanned 32 years, it is perhaps understandable that June Tabor may feel entitled to take it easier when it comes to performance. Yet, with a show that is as understated as this, such an approach can come across as complacent.
Star rating:
***
Welcome to 1976, a time before acoustic guitars plugged in and before dilapidated harmoniums were supplanted by nifty little electronic keyboards. Not that Andy Irvine and Paul Brady went as far as to return to the technology of the time, having enough to deal with in presenting the contents of a classic album that largely hadn't made it to the stage before.
Wingin' It are guitarists Adam Bulley and Chas MacKenzie from Oban. Former Danny-winners, they were a dazzling, jazzy, very funny, breath of fresh air.
No matter how big in scale the programme, or how far-flung its connections, this festival still finds space for the solo voice - and Tuesday's gig featured two of them, both with a pronounced fondness for traditional Scottish airs and for Burns's songs in particular.
Celtic Connections: She's a bit of a tease, old kd. And we're not talking about letting drop that only one woman gets to call her Kathy, so that some hopeful inevitably calls out her name. The encores hinted at a bit more than they delivered, too...
Star Rating:
****
When is a waltz not a waltz? When it's a polska played by a string quartet that's not a string quartet, at least not as we know 'em. Annbjorg Lien put this foursome together for the Telemark festival in her native Norway last year and, while it comprised two violins, viola and cello, the violins were the steely, sweet and sour-toned Haardanger fiddles, and occasionally the more customary model. The viola was a five-string version and banjo and guitar also featured.
Star Rating:
****
There are no half measures with Dick Gaughan. What you see is what you get. And what you get is one of the cornerstones of modern traditional music.
RSS feeds
Features
