The Final Newsletter Before the Big Rebrand? an Introduction to The

The final newsletter before the big rebrand? We talked about a “new hairdo” for the SFO in the last newsletter. We hoped our new logo, colour palette and fonts would be “live” by this month but there have been one or two delays and we’re now aiming for the beginning of April 2021. It would have been good to be able to tie our new image and website in with a relaunch of in- person concerts but that still seems to be some way off. We’re not expecting to have another of our regular concerts now before Glasgow (August 2021) at the earliest. Orchestra business goes on, in spite of this, whether it’s the chat on social media, regular meetings of the SFO Board (via Zoom) or the Annual General Meeting (also via Zoom) on 26 February, which was attended by 58 members. Apart from the usual reports, we had a presentation about the new look we are about to publicly unveil and about the SFO’s social media strategy. That left time for everyone to get together in breakout rooms for some group entertainment which included a double bass solo from Jamie Mason, playing a piece composed by Rona Porter. This kept Jamie sufficiently distracted that he did not get on to any cymbal solos. For this (bumper) edition of the Newsletter, we’ve decided to ask a few musical folk what they’ve been up to during the last year, focusing on professional musicians in Scotland – mainly, but not exclusively, fiddlers – who have all been significantly affected by the drop-off in live music opportunities. We hope you enjoy it and are inspired to discover / revisit their music. An introduction to the life of the professional, traditional musician Irish Fiddler, Martin Hayes, was born in County Clare into a family which was steeped in traditional fiddle music. He picked up the fiddle from a young age. At a Symposium in Dublin Castle in late 2019 (available on the RTE Podcast “The Rolling Wave” for 12 March 2020), he was asked: Did you always know that you would make your way in life as a professional musician? He replied: “It was always obvious from when I was young that music would be the most important part of my life. However, being a professional musician was nothing short of “failure” in life and so I had no “plan” for that. I heard a recent interview with Philip Glass where they asked him for “any advice for young musicians” and he said: “Well, don’t do it unless you can’t do anything else.” The idea being that: if you can live without doing it, don’t do it because it will require of you incredible dedication, passion and resourcefulness – a kind of “staying the course” mentality – so you’d better get a lot of nourishment from the music itself or you won’t be able to continue… But - apart from that - it’s great!” James Alexander James is a living legend in his home area of Moray. Teacher of fiddle to hundreds of children over a 40-year period, he formed “The Fochabers Fiddlers” group and established the annual ‘Speyfest’ extravaganza. He was awarded an MBE for services to traditional music in 2011 and inducted into the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame in 2017. My instruments are Fiddle and Keyboard. I was born and brought up in a small croft between Buckie and Keith. Friday night saw my parents host kitchen "concerts" featuring farmworkers from local farms – they included accordionists, spoons, paper and comb, and no fiddlers! I was around 7 years old and was tucked away in what was the "but and ben" where there was an old piano. Tunes ranged from bothy ballad type through to fairly James Alexander performing at Speyfest, Moray. basic pipe marches and similar. That led to my mother asking my primary school about the possibility of violin tuition. I started lessons at the age of 8. I was then exposed to different styles, including classical music. I was influenced by local players, e.g. Hebbie Gray, Hector McAndrew (not very local but well-known and he played at concerts in my area). Over the past year, I would have expected to be providing corporate entertainment to the local distillery visitor centres as part of the hosting of mainly foreign guests/customers. I would also have expected to be playing for local ceilidhs. In fact, I haven't carried out any public appearances over the past year due to Covid-19. There haven't been many musical highlights given the present circumstances but I have enjoyed seeing some of the online performances especially "off-the-cuff" type performances from folk like Ross Couper. I'm looking forward to getting back to "normal" and also seeing if the online performances continue. I'm hoping that the powers that be will recognise how important live music is to society and also in preserving our traditional music genre. Anyone looking for my music will be able to find a bit online, my tune book and various CDs and Speyfest takes place in Fochabers each July. DVDs on the Ross Record label. Pete Clark I play and teach fiddle and currently live in highland Perthshire, the land of those great 18th century fiddlers, Niel Gow and Robert Mackintosh. However, I started life in the Kingdom of Fife. Born and raised in Dunfermline, I started violin lessons at the age of 9 with Harry D. Grant of Saline, Fife. After Mr Grant’s death around 1971, I had further lessons from David Davies, violin teacher at Dunfermline High School. Both of these teachers were inspirational and could produce such a marvellous sound from even quite ordinary violins. And, importantly, neither had taboos when it came to repertoire. In my teens, I was a member of the Fife Schools Orchestra and every Friday night during term time me and my musical peers were transported by coach to the weekly rehearsals in Glenrothes High School. My musical tastes were then - and continue to be - very eclectic. Pete Clark A quick browse through my CD collection would reveal: Niel Gow; J.S. Bach; Vaughan Williams; Pink Floyd; Led Zeppelin; Sting; Alasdair Fraser; Dougie MacLean. They all have a place on my shelves. I continued to play during my university days at Heriot-Watt, studying Marine Biology. While living in Edinburgh, I was able to see and hear many bands live, including Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, Planxty and The Boys of the Lough. This really kindled my interest in traditional music. In the late ‘70s, I joined Dunfermline-based folk band “Heritage”. I travelled with them to various folk festivals throughout Europe. The other fiddler in that band was the late Davy Lockhart. He was a mine of information and a fine artist, and we became great friends. Jack Beck was the singer and we are still in touch, though he now lives in Virginia, USA. Around about the same time, I met accordionist Bert Shorthouse. That meeting led to several summer seasons playing with him and his band in Edinburgh. The band included pianist Jim Mitchell and drummer George Cheyne, and the shows were very much aimed at the tourist market, in the Caledonian Hotel and what was then the “Eurocrest Hotel”. I learned a great deal from Bert and those “tartan nights”. Traditional fiddlers on TV in those days were few and far between. However, one particular TV series I remember well was called “Down Home”. It featured Shetland fiddler, Aly Bain, travelling throughout North America, exploring the many different fiddle styles to be found there, and meeting and playing with great fiddlers, one of whom was the phenomenal Mark O’Connor. During the ‘90s, I played for the Edinburgh branch of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society (RSCDS), in a show called “Strictly Scottish”, as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. For much of my working life, I was a teacher of biology and science. During that time, fiddling took a back seat. But, in 2000, I left the classroom behind and decided to focus on music. I believed that a combination of teaching fiddle and playing for dances could bring in a liveable wage, and so it proved. I was then playing regularly with The Benachally Ceilidh Band and the Jauncey Brothers band and giving fiddle lessons at home. In 2001, I became a fiddle tutor on the Scottish Music Course at what was then the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD), now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS). This involved a lengthy commute once or twice a week, between Dunkeld and Glasgow, but I had the privilege of working with some very accomplished players, many of whom remain friends and are now familiar names on the current trad music scene. In 2015, I stepped back from my commitments at the RCS in order to have more time working closer to home and to focus on my own ventures (and, it has to be said, to go fishing). The virus pandemic seemed to kick in very rapidly, metamorphosing from rumour to crisis almost overnight. The first restrictions were introduced in March 2020, during the week leading up to what would have been the 17th Niel Gow Festival in Dunkeld & Birnam, which I have been involved with as musical director since 2004. We were forced to cancel just 5 days before the festival was due to begin. (And this year’s festival has also been cancelled, though there are plans for an online event.) My teaching at home had to stop, and of course all the gigs I had in my diary – concerts, ceilidhs, weddings, fiddle workshops etc.

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