Young trio Assynt opened the show. Fiddle, guitar and mandolin, whistles and full fat Highland bagpipes. The tunes are mostly self penned, but firmly routed in the tradition and many sound as if they could have been around for hundreds of years. The slower numbers are sensitively played, but it's the fast stuff that gets the crowd going, with David Shedden's pipes rousing the passions and bringing the greatest response from the audience. They've got a bit of stage presence too, with the odd amusing anecdote. Great entertainment.
The Orcadians of Hudson's Bay is a project put together by Gnoss fiddler Graham Rorie (and nice to see his fellow Gnossers in the audience to lend him their support) to highlight, in music, how great a contribution the people of Orkney made to the running and success of the famous Canadian trading company - and the impact that had on the islands themselves. To this end he has undertaken a lot of research on the subject, written tunes inspired by his reading, and assembled, with the help of the Celtic Connections organisers, a top notch line up of traditional musicians to perform it with him. Kristan Harvey, Pàdruig Morrison, Rory Matheson, Signy Jakobsdottir and James Lindsay, plus a cameo performance from those magnificent Canadians from le Vent du Nord.
The result is a mix of tales and facts from history, music that takes it's key from both sides of the Atlantic, and a performance that is both lyrical and informative. Who knew that, in the early 19th century, around 80% of Hudson's Bay employees came from that small island group? Rorie's tales brought the subject alive, and the music impressed, if somewhat sedately. That's never a term associated with LVdN, and their contribution enlivened proceedings.
An interesting experiment, and one that deserves future hearings.
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