THE LIST
CELTIC CONNECTIONS
Most events take place at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. 2 Sauchiehall Street. in the Main Auditorium. the Strathclyde Suite. the Buchanan Suite. or the Exhibition Hall. Other venues are Tramway. Albert Drive. Adelaide's. 209 Bath Street. and the Barony Hall. University of Strathclyde.
Information Line: 0141 353 4137. Booking Line: 0141 227 5511; fax: ()141 353 4134.
Ticket prices do not include booking fee. Tickets may be ordered by post from GRCH or in person frotn GRCH. the Ticket Centre. Candleriggs. or any Ticketlink box office.
THURSDAY 4
I Jigs and Jazz Main Auditorium. 8pm. £15. £12.50. Galwayman Frankie Gavin. De Damian's fluent fiddle and flute player. joins octogenarian swing-jazz fiddle maestro Stephan Grapelli‘s trio in Celtic Connections’ showbiz opening concert. Support from Scots all-women vocal ensemble The Folk Divas. See picture caption.
FRIDAY 5
I Dpening Ceilidh Bash Barony Hall. 8pm. £8.50. Featuring Donald Shaw’s All- Star Ceilidh Band. Capercaillie's accordionist and keyboard player leads a band of famous folkies for the festival's opening dance.
I Alison Kinnaird and Christine Primrose 5 Adelaide's. 8pm. £4. Scottish small harps. ' both wire and gut-strung. in a traditional setting from Kinnaird. and authentic song from Lewis woman Primrose. one of Gaeldom's finest singers. I I Karen Tweed and Ian Carr Adelaide's. 1 8pm. £4. Superb. tasteful instrumental musicianship by Poozies‘ accordionist and i Kathryn Tickell‘s guitarist. I Balnain House Workshops Various
classes on instrumental. dance and vocal styles of traditional music. lnformalion 353 4137. -
I Green Linnet Festival Club Central Hotel. Gordon Street. 10.30pm—Iam. Free to holders of today's concert ticket holders and performers. Also a limited number of free tickets.
SATURDAY 6
I Deanta Strathclyde Suite. 2pm. £5. Support from Hobin Williamson. Young Irish band with a straight. no-frills approach to song. lyrical slow airs and energetic dance tunes. Ex-Incredible String Band founder Williamson tells tall tales. sings his own idiosyncratic folk- derived songs and plays mostly harp. the stringed variety.
I Afternoon Ceilidh Dance Exhibition Hall. 3pm. £3.50. Music frotn Pistachio Hewts.
I Capercaillie Main Auditorium. 7.30pm. £ I 2.50. £10.50 and £7.50 (standing). Support from the Carlos Nunez Band. The leading Scottish folk-based band who crossover ittto rock territory have a new album in the shops. attd piper Fred Morrison in their ranks. Nunez is a leading exponent of the Galician bagpipes from the Celtic province of Northern Spain.
I Poozies Strathclyde Suite. 8pm. 1 1pm. £8.50. Two concerts back-to-liack. by the
a Mauchltne pub. The Poozies have an excellent instrumental line-up and a new fiddler/vocalist itt Kate Husby. one of the finest of the new generation of linglish singers. liven more youthful talent is evident in the young Northern Irish band Dige. See panel.
I Davey Spillane Band Barony Hall. 8pm.
. £ 12.50. £10.50. Support from Edinburgh's 3 jazzy harp-led trio Dachue Cafe. ilalfof
the last Moving Hearts incantation is back
1 accompanying Spillane's uillean pipes as 1 they move from traditional Irish to blues '2 and Eastern European titne signatures.
l Named after a happening New York
venue. Bachue Cafe sets (‘orrina llewat's
jazzy harp in contemporary idioms.
‘ I Balnain House Workshops Various
classes on instrumental. dance and vocal styles oftraditional music. Information
3534137.
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I The Fureys: Even in these sophisticated times, when folk music has made the transition to major concert hall stages, its practitioners can still seem a little uneasy with their surroundings. The Fureys have been a major draw for years on the world circuit, but when he appeared at the inaugural Celtic Connections event, uillean piper Flnbar Furey could not resist telling a packed hall how much they had missed in the impromptu session at the hotel the night before.
The point was well taken. The kind of grassroots traditional music on which the four brothers grew up in Dallyfennont often seems submerged in the middle of the road pop-folk of their best known hits. At the same time, the band remain closely connected to those roots, and have acted as ambassadors for Irish music for over four decades, reaching a large world-wide audience in the process.
Finbar Furey puts that MOR reputation down to record company pressure to produce hits like “Sweet Sixteen' or ‘Maggie’, but insists that ‘we’re not middle of the road, we’re a folk band. We can sing anything, but folk is what we’re good at, and the boys are all very happy with what we’re doing now.’ (Kenny Mathleson)
Main Auditorium, Tue 9, 7.30pm
I Iron Horse: Heard, sometimes subliminally, by a huge television audience playing
= their own score for the soundtrack of this year’s DDC documentary The Camekeeper,
Iron Horse are a six-year-old and still young Scottish group evolving a distinctive
creative style in their compositions and reinterpretation of the national idiom. Strong _ on the synthesiser and sequencer; but with a potential for occasional over-uie~top
.. percussion, the band nevertheless incorporates bagpipes of all sizes, fiddle, whistle,
i a wide variety of fretted instruments, as well as vocals that are used as much to
produce soundscapes as to sing the lyrics of their (mainly self-composed) songs.
1 While the composed music might not suit the traditionalists, there is enough welly
: in Gavin Marwick’s fiddle to get the most arthritic foot tapping. (Horman Chalmers)
all-women folk entertainment named after i I late Night ce'l'dh Dance hxmbmcn
Hall. 10.30pm. £5. Accordion. banjo and
fiddle lead The Dccasionals. I Green Linnet Festival Club Central
Hotel. Gordon Street. 10.30pm—lam. Free
: to holders of today's concert ticket holders ' and pertormers. Also a limited number of
free tickets.
. SUNDAY 7
j I Balnain Harp Forum Buchanan Suite. . 2—7.3()pm. £6. Introduced by jazzy Scots
harpist Corrina Hewat. the long aftentoon features Ireland‘s premiere player Maire
Ni Chathasaigh. Scottish duo Sileas. and I soloist and expert on the history of the 1 Scottish small harps. Alison Kinnaird. 1 I Tartan Amoebas Strathclyde Suite. 2pm. £5. Support frotn the Carlos Nunez
Band. Leap about to manic mongrel tnusic from the Amocbas who disguise a Scottish dance band. or at least fiddle and
pipes. with world idioms. brass and
percussion. Nunez is a gentle Galician Davey Spillane. playing the sweet pipes of that Celtic area of North West Spain.
I Aly Cain and the DT Ensemble
Tramway. 8pm. £10. A remarkable fusion of folk fiddle and classical ensemble. playing highly arranged pieces of traditional Shetland and Scandinavian music attd original works by one of Norway's leading composers. See feature.
I Shooglenifty Strathclyde Suite. 8pm.
£8.50. Energising. exceptionally well played tnodern Scottish hypnofunkadelic
dance grooves fronted by prowling : Rasputin-like fiddler Angus Grant and I support frotn Martyn Bennett's Celtic
karaoke. playing fiddle. pipes and whistle to a backing track.
I Iron Horse Barony Hall. 8pm. £8.50. With guests to be announced. Very popular Glasgow band mix original. slightly limp songs with muscular instrumentals and a rare mix of instruments. See picture caption.
I Balnain House Workshops Various classes on instrumental. dance and vocal styles oftraditional music. lnforrnation 353 4137.
I Green linnet Festival Club Central Hotel. Gordon Street. 10.30pm—1am. Free to holders of today's concert ticket holders
5 and performers. Also a limited number of
free tickets.
; MONDAY 8
I Master Class Exhibition Hall.
12.30pm. Tickets free from box office. Fiddle and bow in the hands of Shetlander Aly Dain.
I Celtic Conversation Pieces Strathclyde Suite. 1pm. £5. llz Lochhead and Michael Marra. Songs. poems and patter in a reprise of their Edinburgh Festival show In Flagrant Delicht.
I The Big Debate Buchanan Suite. 2.30pm. Tickets free from the box office. The topic is ‘Scotland Since the '45'. Professor Ted Cowan of Glasgow University keeps the peace between Professor Tom Devine (Strathclyde) and Professor Allan Maclnnes (Aberdeen).
I Barbara Dickson Main Auditorium.
i 7.30pm. £12.50. £10.50. Support from Mabsant. The queen of MOR once lived
' in Fountainbridge and sang Jacobite songs i in the Edinburgh Folk Club. Expect a
l good number of old favourites. Mabsant is a long-established group of Welsh musicians attd singers. and include the harp in their line-up.
I June Tabor Strathclyde Suite. 8pm. £8.50. Supported by Brian McHeill and Tony MacManus. With her classy trio.
. Tabor is the best English singer, with a deeply unusual and moving voice and repertoire. Famous frotn his days in Battlefield Band. multi-instrumentalist and songwriter McNeill here performs with Paisley's MacManus. one of Scotland's finest younger musicians and a hugely accomplished acoustic guitarist.
I Balnain House Workshops Various classes on instrumental. dance and vocal styles of traditional music. Information 353 4137.
I Green linnet Festival Club Central Hotel. Gordon Street. 10.30pm—1am. Free to holders of today's concert ticket holders and performers. Also a limited number of free tickets.
TUESDAY 9
I Community Concert Main Auditorium. 10.15am. Tickets free from the box office. I Master Class Exhibition Hall. 12.30pm. Tickets free from box office. Piano-accordion with Phil Cunningham. I Celtic Conversation Pieces Strathclyde Suite. lptn. £3.50. With Professor Ted Cowan on the subject of ‘The Migrating
Celts’.
301118 List 15 Dec 1995-11 Jan 1996