by Andrea Boyd and Chris MacKenzie Piping on the big stage CELTIC CONNECTIONS 2012


Finlay MacDonald


With so much great music going on at Celtic Connections,


Piping Today sent out two intrepid


reviewers to cover this year’s festival. Andrea Boyd begins the reviews by revealing some of her own


musical infl uences and what fi rst attracted her to traditional music


B


ORN and raised in Nova Scotia, my taste for traditional music has been shaped by various traditions: maritime folk music, Cape Breton fi ddle tunes, Scottish and Irish traditional music and pipe bands. Paul K MacNeil and Jamie MacInnes’ re-


cording Fosgail an Dorus, a marriage of piping and fi ddle tunes from Cape Breton and Scot- land, was a hugely infl uential recording for me. Artists such as Ashley MacIsaac, The Rankin Family and The Barra MacNeils were gaining national popularity in the 90s and their music was travelling to Scotland as well. Alongside this, my father had a considerable collection of pipe band records — The Red Hackle, Muir- head & Sons, Edinburgh and Glasgow Police Pipe Bands — so I was also well educated in MSR playing from the world’s best. Recordings from Ireland such as Clannad, Planxty and De Dannan also fi lled the house. At the neighbours next door, ‘cutting edge’ music from across the pond intrigued me: Capercaillie, Altan and Battlefi eld Band. For me, travelling to Scotland was about


pursuing solo competition and joining a Grade 1 pipe band but it was also about immers- ing myself in the traditional music scene in Glasgow.


Coming from a community so steeped in traditional music, I found it quite curious as I became more involved in competitive solo piping and pipe bands how little inter- est fellow competitors seemed to have in traditional music.


Often, it seems like the music played by pipe bands in Scotland is incongruent with the traditional music scene and that has always sat a bit uncomfortably with me. I have even heard young pipers from Grade 1 pipe bands speak quite disparagingly about traditional Scottish music and musicians, which is a strange contradiction. As a member of St Laurence O’Toole Pipe Band, visiting Terry and Eileen Tully’s house is a treat for anyone interested in traditional Irish music, and recordings of Altan, Dervish, and Paddy “the king” Kennan line the walls. Terry’s interest in traditional Irish music has long been evident in the music played by St


PIPING TODAY • 23


Photo: John Slavin@Designfolk Ltd


FESTIVAL


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