Scottish Voices: Nuadh-Òrain and Other Songs
Scottish Arts Club - 19/08/23
Music by Graham Hair, Hamish McCunn, and Margaret McAllister
As a feeble but keen student of the Scottish Gaelic language, I was intrigued by the premise of this concert (part of Clubfest at the Scottish Arts Club in Rutland Square), an attempt to perform classical music in the Gaelic. As a Scottish singer with over forty years’ experience in the business, I have never been asked to sing one syllable of our national language, a serious omission!
The Australian composer and organiser, Graham Hair, based in Glasgow, has been ploughing a lonely furrow for many years now, with his group, Scottish Voices. Either an all-female ensemble or a mixed voice ensemble of eight singers, the group has been going since 1991, singing a repertoire of songs and ensembles for solo voices, specialising in contemporary Scottish music, some of which is in Gaelic.
This concert was a showcase both for Scottish Voices but also for the Gaelic language. We started with ‘Four Songs of Love and Longing’ by the Scottish composer, Hamish McCunn, for female trio and piano. This was a very well-performed set of songs, with an extremely well-matched trio of Myrna Tennant, Annie Lewis and Taylor Wilson, with the excellent Toni James at the piano. The beautifully produced soprano of Myrna Tennant was for me the stand-out voice, soaring majestically over the top, but I felt the blend was very well achieved, in these late Romantic settings of poetry by, among others, Wilhelm Müller (in translation) and Shelley.
The next group was sung by the mezzo soprano, Taylor Wilson, alone again with Toni James, and they took us to a place of heightened emotion in a wonderful new piece by the Scottish/American composer, Margaret McAllister, in a Gaelic elegy for George Floyd, the black American murdered by a policeman in 2020. This visceral lament was very well performed, leaving the full audience somewhat overwhelmed by memories of the incident which was the catalyst for the whole ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement.
There followed a group of duets in Italian by Graham Hair, pairing various female voices, but I found these pieces rather lacklustre. The composer told us that they were a response to a trip to Cyprus, but they didn’t seem to evoke either Greece or Italy, nicely sung though they were. They were followed by an embryonic song, part of a forthcoming work by Graham Hair, setting poetry by Catriona Montgomery, the celebrated Gaelic poet. This snippet offered a taster, but only that. I look forward to the final composition, in due course.
The core piece in the programme was a new cycle of songs by Margaret McAllister, in English and Gaelic, ‘Mac-Talla’ (Echo), a serious addition to the repertoire and a welcome work of substance, using, for the main part, the Gaelic. This was its World Premiere, and I can imagine it being taken up by a number of other professional ensembles in the future. Written for a combination of five voices and piano (with scope for expansion, according to the composer), it consists of ten songs, ending with the great cry: “THA GÀIDHLIC BEÒ” - Gaelic is alive! Shifting subtly from full ensemble to occasional solo outcries and poignant duets, this recently completed work was superbly performed by Katie Louise Dobson (soprano), Lynn Bellamy (mezzo-soprano), Roger Patterson (tenor), Jonathan Kennedy (baritone) and Philip Gault (baritone), with Michael Barnett (piano). Ms McAllister is Professor of Composition at Berklee College of Music in Boston, USA, and is the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship to work at the University of Edinburgh, in collaboration with the poet, Aonghas MacNeacail, to create this new work. Sadly, Mr MacNeacail died last year, but this new piece is a fitting testament to his fine poetry, and is an important composition, judging by its premiere at the Arts Club. The two women in the ensemble blended well, Roger Patterson exhibited a fine, clear tenor, while the two baritones were well-contrasted, Jonathan Kennedy smooth and mellifluous and Philip Gault more punchy, with a wide range. We were provided with full texts and translations for the entire programme, which was much appreciated by the enthusiastic audience, and was a welcome antidote to the often programme-free International Festival.
This was a most enjoyable and unexpected afternoon’s entertainment, deserving of a bigger venue and wider publicity. Graham Hair’s group, Scottish Voices, are to be congratulated for their pioneering work in a severely under-represented genre.
