Blas Festival: ‘The Badenoch Suite’ by Charlie McKerron
Boat of Garten Hall - 03/09/22
Badeanoach plus Mhonaidh Ruaidh
One of advantages of living in the Highlands is that you get to hear outstanding new commissions before they hit Celtic Connections in the big city and are streamed around the world. This new commission was made possible through Blas, whose main aim is to celebrate Highland music, Gaelic language, and culture. The festival is held each year throughout the administrative area of The Highland Council seeking to build an international event creating new audiences with visiting artists from Ireland and Nova Scotia and additional events, occasionally held in the Western Isles.
So I took the opportunity last night to go along to Boat of Garten Community Hall to catch the new suite of music composed especially for Badenoch, ‘The Storylands’ by Charlie McKerron, one of Scotland’s finest fiddlers of Capercaillie and Session 9 fame. The area of Badenoch and Strathspey, in the shadow of the Cairngorm mountains, has produced some of the finest professional musicians. This new suite of music was performed by Charlie and other professional musicians – Mhairi Hall, Hamish Napier, Fraser Stone, Hamish Hepburn, Marc Clement, Ilona Kennedy, and Sandra McKay on vocals. This super group was joined by Mhonaidh Ruaidh, the senior band of Feis Spe. Charlie is an award-winning composer with two Royal Television Awards for Drama series ‘Guuth is Uaachdar’ and won MG ALBA Scots Trad Awards. He also tutors Feis Spe and has seen members progress to becoming well known musicians in the traditional music genre. This also served as a celebration of the thirty years they have been inspiring and supporting young people to play and perform traditional music in the Highlands
So the packed hall was treated to a ninety-minute first half of everything the Feis had to offer, and what a repertoire they have, including my favourite Strathspey. As a young dancer, taught by the great Joan Lawson, this certainly got my old feet tapping along. The synchronicity and musicianship of these young players is awesome, to use the popular vernacular. It would be wrong to pick out different performers from this talented young group as they came over like a band playing together to produce their best. Of course, the oldest eventually move on. One young fiddle player ready to move in the autumn to a specialist music school with others to follow. Fortunately, there are members of the junior band ready to step up. A challenge for the tutors and Charlie McKerron.
After a quick interval and stage set up Charlie and his fellow musicians took to the stage. This suite is composed of six parts: Dramatic Contours, Greylag Geese and Tawny Owls, High Peaks, Spring Day, Strath Strathspey, and finally The Spate. The piece employs fiddle, drums, whistle, pipes, piano, guitar, and vocals plus fiddle superstar Charlie. With a dramatic Gaelic vocal introduction, the audience is drawn immediately into the majestic hills, glens, and rivers of Badenoch within the Cairngorms. The journey continues highlighting the geese flying high over as they migrate, the high peaks rising above, spring with bird song, the dancing river and finally a driving rhythmical finale. The work although traditional in essence has a filmic quality which I found appealing. Music should conjure up images and ideas, nudge your body into movement, create an emotional response, and this work certainly achieves this. It was a pleasure to enjoy first class professional musicians working in harmony to bring this new work to a home crowd. This was the highlight of 2022 for this reviewer. Next stop Celtic Connections, I hope. See you there.
You can hear this piece live next week at Blas festival.
