Elphinstone Newsletter Autumn07
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UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN 2009 Researching, recording, and promoting the cultural traditions of North and North-East Scotland NAFCo 2010 International Fiddle Convention Back in Town! ollowing on from its great success in ceilidhs, solo recitals, workshops (fiddle, other St. John’s, Newfoundland, in 2008, the instruments, and dance), demonstrations, free NorFth Atlantic Fiddle Convention will return performances, ‘market-place’ events, to Aberdeen in 2010, hosted by the workplace events, hospital visits, sessions in Elphinstone Institute in partnership with pubs and at the Festival and Family Club at the Scottish Culture and Traditions Association Lemon Tree, paralleled by an academic (SC&T). It will be a wonderful opportunity to conference to be held at King’s College, based experience the excellence of Scottish fiddling on the theme ‘Local Roots, Global Routes’. NAFCo guest Liz Doherty and the many other styles, along with Mornings will be reserved for the conference; associated dance traditions found around the the lunchtimes for free events including taster Cullivoe Fiddlers, and many more. North Atlantic rim, particularly in concerts and the busking trails in the city A steering committee has been set up of Scandinavia, North America, Ireland, and centre; the afternoons for the workshops and interested parties and regular meetings are elsewhere in Britain. Appropriately based in solo recitals; and the evenings for the main being held. We are particularly looking for North-East Scotland, noted for its outstanding showcase performances, as well as ceilidh families who will host guests, volunteers to tradition of playing and composing, the dances. Besides the many events taking place drive mini-buses, volunteers for stewarding, Convention will celebrate centuries of cultural in Aberdeen itself, there will also be concerts and other offers of help and support. By the exchange, in which the northern seas, far from and workshops at Banchory, Haddo, and time this newsletter is published we hope to isolating communities, were and are the Huntly, plus a village ceilidh at Garlogie. have in place a Convention Assistant. If you corridors through which they developed their Among our guests at the convention will would like to help us, please get in touch – distinctive but related musical traditions. be Paul Anderson, Liz Doherty, Alasdair [email protected] – or contact the Institute on The Convention will consist of a five-day Fraser, Kimberly Fraser, Natalie Haas, Ronan 01224 272996. festival, 14-18 July 2010, featuring concerts, Martin, Bruce Molsky, Göran Premberg, the Ian Russell William Stanley Robertson n the passing of William Stanley Travellers and treated like a dunce by his Although Stanley had sung to the family as Robertson (8 June 1940 – 2 August teachers. Meanwhile, at home with his mother, a young child and entertained his childhood 2009I), Scotland has lost one of her national Elizabeth (née MacDonald) from Lumphanan, friends with his storytelling, it was not until he treasures. Honoured and respected in his he was avidly reading the classics, from was well into adulthood that he performed in lifetime as a storyteller, singer, piper, writer, Shakespeare to the Bible. He left school at public. Within a few years Stanley established playwright, fourteen without any qualifications and his himself as a fine piper, a gifted ballad singer, and lecturer, he talents unrecognised. and an inspirational storyteller. His reputation synthesised From his own people Stanley had a far soon spread across the Atlantic and in time he history, richer education – wonderful stories about his was invited to lecture at Harvard, Brandeis, experience, hero Jack, who overcame all the odds to win and in Vermont. In 1988 Stanley lectured at a culture and through in the end, and the extraordinary six-week summer school at East Tennessee creativity into ballads and songs that gave him a deep State University. ‘When it came to Stanley’s spellbinding understanding of his country’s history and turn,’ wrote Margaret Bennett, ‘he outshone tales, stories landscape from Harlaw to Drum, from the even the most experienced in his ability to and songs. Covenanters’ wars to Culloden. His mentors convey his subject to the students.’ Born into a were many, not just his aunt Jeannie Stanley had a remarkable ability to take large family of Robertson, but his great aunt, Maggie Stewart, you into the heart of tradition, not just through the Travelling his father, his cousin Lizzie Higgins, and other history or where he had learnt it, but what it is people he was members of this highly musical extended really all about. He will be sadly missed by all sadly regularly family, which included the pipers Isaac and who care about Scotland and her traditions. Stanley Robertson, eye to eye, heart to bullied at Donald Higgins, and the fiddler Albert Ian Russell and Tom McKean heart, 2004. Photo: Ian Russell school by non- Stewart. LANGUAGE • TRADITION • HISTORY From the Director The Old Ship of Zion n May this year my PhD thesis, ‘The Old Ship of Zion: t’s good to be back after my six month’s leave Singing in Evangelicalism in North-East and Northern and I’m pleased to say that I have managed to Isles Scottish Coastal Communities 1859–2009’, passed the progress my research with the following results: I I scrutiny of Dr Vic Gammon from Newcastle University and three refereed articles accepted for publication, two more in the Prof. Donald Meek, Emeritus professor from the University of pipeline, three conference papers given, and a volume of an Edinburgh and I graduated with a doctorate in July. In June, I had international journal edited. Subjects covered include: the the privilege of being part of the EVIA (Ethnographic Video for evolving repertoire of bothy ballads, negotiating the secular and Instruction and Analysis) digital archive project which took the sacred in the soirée, the folk arts as intangible cultural assets, place over two weeks at the University of Indiana, Bloomington. tracing the history of a murder ballad in tradition, and the This was a fantastic experience, and I was accompanied by contribution of the performer as scholar to our understanding of around fifteen ethnomusicologists and anthropologists from the fiddle music. In addition, I have made progress with my USA, UK, Irish Republic, and Austria each with in-depth monograph on vernacular performance in the North-East. I am knowledge of cultures including those of Cuba, Turkey, very grateful to Dr McKean, the Deputy Director, who has Romania, Russia, and Portugal. We were trained in using video managed the Institute in my absence, and to Alison Sharman the annotation software, developed by staff at Indiana, to write Institute Secretary, for her strong support. detailed analysis of ten hours of video recordings which each of The winner of the 2009 Toulmin Prize of £500 was us had made during field research. Once completed, the work Eleanor Fordyce with ‘Sae Mony Summers’; a copy of her will be peer-reviewed and published online. I am now working winning short story can be read in the June issue of the Leopard as a visiting tutor for the Music Department and archive assistant or at the Leopard online. I am very grateful to our judges – Jack at the Elphinstone Institute. I also have a variety of musical Webster, Lindy Cheyne, Norman Harper, and Paul Dukes. In projects on the go, including a CD, ‘Instant Ceilidh’, with the 2010, the short story competition in memory of David Toulmin band Danse McCabre, working in the three-piece group, will run for the third consecutive year, supported by the Leopard ‘Ellefish’, with Christine Kydd and Kit Watson, and planning a magazine and the Scots Language Centre. The competition is nine-day tour of Ireland in March 2010 with Shetland fiddler open to amateur writers of 16 years and over. Entries should Claire White as Blyde Lasses, where we will be performing and reach the Institute by 31 March 2010 and must be unpublished, giving workshops in arts centres and in the University of of no more than 4,000 words in length, in MS Word format and Limerick’s music department. Frances Wilkins as A4 typescript. The winner will be announced in May at the 2010 WORD Festival. For full competition rules, please consult our website. Island Cultures Conference in Shetland One of our PhD students, Les Donaldson, who is researching the history of Aberdeen’s Seven Incorporated aking Islands out of the Box: Island Cultures and Shetland Trades, is currently in Delaware attending a conference Identity took place in Lerwick, Shetland in May 2009. The organised by the Society of Antiquaries and Winterthur fourT-day event – the first in the Island Dynamics series of biennial Museum, ‘Transatlantic Craftsmanship: Scotland and the conferences – was a collaboration of the Elphinstone Institute, UHI Americas in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries’. Two of Millennium Institute’s Centre for Nordic Studies, and Shetland our other PhD students, Irene Watt and Adam Grydehøj, together Museum & Archives. with Dr McKean and I, will be presenting papers at the annual The theme was the role of islands as meeting places for cultures meeting of the American Folklore Society in Boise, Idaho, later and the influence these meetings have on the formation of local this month. identities. With 57 speakers from 22 sovereign states and autonomous Warmest congratulations are due to another of our regions, the event’s exploration of local communities had a decidedly students, Jennifer Fagen and Henry Mangkusasono who were international perspective. Although the majority of presenters came married on 5 September in Ruch, Oregon. Jennifer also kindly from Western Europe, some had travelled from as far afield as Iran, provided participants in the Friends of the Institute’s Ballad Bus Newfoundland, New Zealand, and North Cyprus.