Memories - the Scots Trad Awards

Seeing the highlights of the Scots Trad Awards 2012 on BBC Alba last night brought the past year back to me in a big way. 

When I visited Berneray in 2011 friends were raving about an album that had been released a few years earlier and which they recommended as a great introduction to a singer from South Uist - Òg-Mhadainn Shamhraidh (Summer Dawn), by Kathleen MacInnes. Thinking about the way that I would use music from Uist in the show about Angus MacPhee was very much on my mind at that time and I promptly drove down to Benbecula to buy a copy. After that it remained on my car CD player for most of the next year, and Kathleen's voice and music was an inspiration throughout the period of devising 'Angus - Weaver of Grass'. So last night I was delighted to see that Kathleen's latest album Cille Bhride (Kilbride) had won the Album of the Year Award. 

Another connection that brought that period when the Angus production was in its preparatory stages back to me was seeing, at the Awards, Linda Macleod who helped me during our auditions for a Gaelic singer at the CCA in Glasgow. 

Linda was one of the co-hosts of the Alba broadcast, and she interviewed Kathleen after winning the album award. Linda was a great support for me and the Horse + Bamboo team during our audition process; helping by explaining the nuances of local Gaelic and very much at ease with all the brilliant and talented musicians we had the privilege to meet. Of course it was here that we were fortunate to meet Mairi Morrison who ultimately became such an important part in making our production a success, as well as becoming a key member of the Horse + Bamboo touring company. 

Auditions in Glasgow

I've been at the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow, along with Loz Kaye and Alison Duddle, auditioning Gaelic singers for the Angus MacPhee production. We also had a great deal of support and help from Linda Macleod, a young Gaelic speaker from Clachan in North Uist (incidentally a fine singer herself), who helped us with the Gaelic and in so doing also filled in a lot of detail about the life and culture of Uist - precisely those nuances that are so hard to come by except from someone with an intimate knowledge. Thank you so much Linda, and thanks to the CCA too, for their generosity in providing us with such a wonderful audition room - and to Esther for making the links that made it possible!

The auditions were an inspiration in themselves. Auditions can often be tiring and draining, but these were very stimulating, and listening to the singing and playing provided us with an unusual number of tingly emotional moments. Every single person we auditioned offered us wonderful skill and feeling in their music, and the three of us sitting behind the desk quickly recognised what a privilege it was to be so closely engaged with the music from the islands in this way. I think the process also made us re-think some of our ideas about the show, and I feel that the ripples from these two days in Glasgow will continue to inform our own work over the coming weeks and months. 

We'll be thinking about the selection of a singer over the weekend, and make a final decision on Monday. But if any of the singers who came along to the CCA read this blog - my heartfelt thanks to you for joining with us over these past days.

The photograph above I found on the web and, at first, I thought I had stumbled across a photograph of our Angus Macphee as a young boy. But no, it's another (Dan) Angus MacPhee, but I include it as it's so evocative a photograph, and pretty much exactly fits in with my image of young Angus and his passion for horses. Thank you, and credit to the anonymous source of this photo.