22 July 2024Highland cultural celebration Blas announces 20th programme
Blas, the annual festival of Gaelic culture and music, marks its 20th anniversary with nine days of events across the Highlands and Islands from September 6th to 14th.
Singer Julie Fowlis, vocal trio Sian and guitar-accordion-pipes-whistle duo Tim Edey & Ross Ainslie are among the attractions featuring in concerts and cèilidhs from Staffin to Strathy.
Blas, which is Gaelic for 'taste' or 'sample', has become a staple in the Gaelic culture calendar since The Highland Council established the event, in 2004, as a small-scale festival with three events.
Since then the festival has promoted 1,300 events, employed 5,100 musicians, attracted an audience of over 130,000 and generated at least £8m for the Highland economy.
Organised by Fèisean nan Gàidheal in partnership with The Highland Council, the festival will visit communities across the Highlands and Islands including Inverness, Portree, Borve (Isle of Lewis), Dingwall, Ballachulish, Newtonmore, Invergarry, Gairloch and Golspie.
The programme will highlight the Highlands' rich culture and heritage by showcasing old and new Gaelic songs, traditional music and stories.
Sian will headline concerts in Lochinver, Portree and Newtonmore. Julie Fowlis, who recently performed at the D-Day commemoration in Portsmouth, will perform in Plockton and in Inverness Cathedral, with support from fiddle and piano duo, Charlie Grey & Joseph Peach, and the packed programme also includes a special 70th birthday celebration for Harris-born singer, Chrissie MacVicar.
Arthur Cormack from Blas Festival organisers, Fèisean nan Gàidheal, said: "We are pleased to be delivering Blas this year, through a contract from The Highland Council, despite programming in a challenging situation of increasing costs and standstill funding support. While the programme is scaled back somewhat, we hope audiences will enjoy what we are able to offer and, through collaborations with other groups, a good range of events celebrating Gaelic culture will be available in communities across the Highlands."
Full details are avilable here
20 July 2024Irish traditional group Réalta release epic multimedia piece
Belfast-based traditional group Réalta release The Leap, their most ambitious project to date, on Friday, July 26.
A multimedia piece, which incorporates spoken word and an accompanying animated video, The Leap was commissioned by the charity Live Music Now and composed by Réalta founding members uilleann piper Conor Lamb and guitarist-singer Deirdre Galway.
It celebrates the townland and people of Limavady, Co. Derry, and describes the area’s beautiful landscape as well as exploring the legend behind the town’s name, Léim an Mhadaidh - The Dog’s Leap.
Working with Garvagh poet Anne McMaster, Sligo artist Peter Crann and their Réalta bandmates, Lamb and Galway developed their initial composition into an epic 15-minute suite of music, poetry, storytelling and visual art.
The audio will be available to stream and download on all major platforms and the accompanying video will be released on Réalta’s YouTube channel (@realtamusic).
30 June 2024Playtime releases new CD featuring international guests
Edinburgh-based Playtime have finished work on a new album, Morse Code Through the Lights, which was recorded during lockdown and features an international group of guests alongside the core Playtime quartet.
As Covid prevented musicians from playing live, Playtime continued their long-established Thursday sessions by inviting musicians from around the world to join them online. With everyone working in isolation, this was a challenge that Playtime managed to overcome.
Trumpeters Laura Jurd and Byron Wallen, saxophonists Denys Baptiste and Iain Ballamy, Dutch cellist Ernst Reijseger, vibraphonist Corey Mwamba and Japanese trumpet and piano team Satoko Fujii & Natsuki Tamura contributed to fourteen hours of music, from which tracks have been selected for Morse Code Through the Lights.
The CD will be released nationally in October but exclusive early copies are available on July 24th. These can obtained by pre-ordering now and are available through three levels of support.
For £100 patrons will have their names included in the CD booklet (orders for this option must placed today - 30th June). For £20 patrons will receive a CD plus bonus online tracks, which are available through the Myriad Streams web platform. Signed copies are also available for £30 and include bonus online tracks. All options include postage and packing.
“Ordering a CD from us now will really help support Playtime to continue to provide a high-quality stream of creative Scottish improvised music and to present this positively and imaginatively to the world via live and streamed concerts, interviews and podcasts, social media content and CD releases,” says Tom Bancroft, Playtime drummer. “If people would like to pay slightly more than the set prices, that would be brilliant.”
14 June 2024Blue Note releases live Wayne Shorter album
Blue Note Records releases Celebration, Volume 1, the first in a series of archival recordings by the late saxophonist Wayne Shorter, on Friday August 23.
Shorter, who made huge contributions to Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and Miles Davis’ second great quintet as well as co-founding Weather Report and adding his genius to Joni Mitchell’s music, died aged 89 in March 2023.
In his last months he listened round-the-clock to his unreleased recordings and the 2014 live set by his acclaimed quartet with pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Patitucci, and drummer Brian Blade that makes up Celebration Volume 1 particularly excited him.
Captured at Stockholm Jazz Festival, the tracks include some of the group’s favourite pieces including Zero Gravity, Orbits, Lotus, and Shorter’s interpretation of the traditional Irish air, She Moves Through the Fair.
Blue Note will also be celebrating Shorter’s legacy with reissues of classic albums including a Tone Poet Vinyl Edition of Odyssey of Iska (1970), a Classic Vinyl Edition of JuJu (1964) and a blue vinyl edition of Speak No Evil (1964), which will be available exclusively through Blue Note authorised dealers.
27 May 2024Election holds up Parliamentary Jazz Awards
The Parliamentary Awards have been postponed until early October due to the General Election being called on July 4th.
Due to take place at Alfie's Jazz Club in Soho the night before the election, the awards are organised on behalf of the All Party Parliamentary Jazz Appeciation Group but with Parliament going into recess, all such groups have been dissolved and will be reconstituted in the next Parliament after the election.
Chris Hodgkins, who coordinates the awards' selection panel, says that everything is on hold and he is currently unable to announce the nominations.
"Normal service will resume after the election," says Chris. "Once the APPJAG is reconstituted we'll be able to make an announcement regarding nominations and the awards will be able to go ahead."
04 May 2024Pianist Euan Stevenson releases album inspired by his hometown
Pianist Euan Stevenson’s Earthtones Trio releases Sound Tracks, a digital album of Stevenson’s commission for Chamber Music Scotland and Classic Music Live Scotland, on May 22.
The Falkirk-born, Surrey-based pianist, who also co-leads the jazz group New Focus, is hoping the album will encourage more organisations to commission local composers to write music inspired by their hometowns. “It gives audiences a fillip also to hear new music that they can relate to,” he says.
Earthtones Trio features RSNO principal flautist Katherine Bryan and cellist Betsy Taylor alongside Stevenson on piano and is augmented by BBC Big Band drummer Tom Gordon on percussion for Sound Tracks.
A suite of nine contemporary classical music pieces Sound Tracks was inspired by the people, places and landmarks of Falkirk and themes include home, adventure, conflict, and nostalgia. The album is available from iOcco Classical.