Last Tuesday, Jamie Caldwell – Unite Community Co-ordinator for Scotland – penned a piece in the ‘Voices from Scotland’ section of the Morning Star arguing the importance of arts, music and…Read more…
Celtic Connections 3 – crossing borders
The first of my two articles reviewing this year’s Celtic Connections was in the Morning Star yesterday here. It dealt with two themes, the continuing connections between British and Irish music and…Read more…
An embarrassment of riches – Celtic Connections ’17 Preview
This is a preview piece for this year’s Celtic Connections, that was printed in the Morning Star on Thursday (19 Jan). The link to the article on line doesn’t seem to be working, so here (with a…Read more…
Travelling to come together.
This is my review of the highlights of 2016 . Compiled for the Morning Star (who published it here) this is the original. The Star is excellent at shaping my sometimes unweildy prose into shorter…Read more…
Two acts at the peak of their powers – Celtic Connections 5
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Unthanks and Lau – ***** – GRCHIf anyone thinks that folk music is some immutable, traditional monolith, they need to see one of these two bands. Come to think of it, they need to see…Read more…
Two acts at the peak of their powers – Celtic Connections 5
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Unthanks and Lau – ***** – GRCHIf anyone thinks that folk music is some immutable, traditional monolith, they need to see one of these two bands. Come to think of it, they need to see…Read more…
Pulling down the walls – or how to arrange an ensemble concert – Celtic Connections 4
Songs of Separation – ***** – Mitchell Theatre In a festival that has made a feature of ensemble concerts, where a number of artists come together around a theme or event, ten women from Scotland and…Read more…
Our nation deserves better songs – Celtic Connections 3
Scotia Nova – Songs for a better nation *** GRCH, Strathclyde SuiteThe problem with projects like this, is that you end up with a bunch of compositions, some of which won’t be as good as…Read more…
The Soul of the Estuary – Celtic Connections 2
— and this is the second – a tour-de-force by Chris Wood
Chris Wood – ***** – Glasgow Art ClubChris Wood – stepping up to the markIt is a common misconception that the tradition of ‘folk music’…Read more…
The Carrying Stream – Celtic Connections 1
This is the first of a series of reviews of Celtic Connections concerts. I’m doing a couple of summary reviews for the Morning Star (and indeed did a preview piece here.) but I thought some of these…Read more…
Joyous Johnstone Jamboree!
I’ve just realised that I promised to put my review of Arthur Johnstone and Friends at The Mitchell Theatre, Glasgow up once it had been published in the Morning Star, and I’ve forgotten to do this!…Read more…
Rounding up the Festival – bar one!
The Morning Star have today rounded up a few of my reviews (and one by FairPley’s Stephen Wright) into a compilations piece, here. The review for Canzionere Grecanico Salentino/Complete has…Read more…
At this Festival, Connections are Key
–>My Review of the Celtic Connections concert featuring Luka Bloom and Bella Hardy was in Wednesday’s Morning Star. it can be found here.Another concert that the Star hasn’t had the space…Read more…
Festival making much of their Connections
This is by way of a compilation of my reviews of Celtic Connections concerts so far published in the Morning Star.
The festival is well on course to be a classic year. In particular the…Read more…
Celtic Connections – bringing the world together.
My preview of this year’s Celtic Connections festival is printed in today’s Morning Star, here. They have made some (entirely legitimate) editorial changes to my original article – mainly reordering…Read more…