Folk and jazz music events in Scotland in 2014

Picture: Robert Perry

BETWEEN the centenary of the First World War, another Homecoming Year and a major cultural programme in association with the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow this summer – not to mention a certain matter of a Referendum on national self-determination in September – 2014 is not short of events to prompt a song and dance and much else.

Monday 6th January 2014

As ever, Glasgow’s Celtic Connections, this year celebrating its 21st birthday, gets the year off to a hefty start with 18 crowded days of events across 17 venues (including the new SSE Hydro), from 16 January to 2 February. It kicks off on 16 January with the acclaimed Scots classical violinist Nicola Benedetti joining folk stars Julie Fowlis, Aly Bain and Phil Cunningham, as well as setting the year’s Commonwealth tone with French-Canadian accordion wizard Yves Lambert and his trio, and Peter Mawanga and the Amaravi Movement from Malawi (see see www.celticconnections.com).

And that’s just the opening concert. The festival’s Common-wealth connections also see the folk power trio Lau team up with the contemporary-classical Elysian Quartet while accordionist Luke Daniels and multi-instrumentalist Matheu Watson present their New World Drovers, both performances products of the PRS for Music Foundation’s New Music Biennial initiative that will feature later in Glasgow and London during the games.

January also sees a Scottish tour by Northern Lights, a classy-sounding cross-cultural outfit enlisting flautist Brian Finnegan, concertina player Niall Vallely, fiddler Donald Grant and harpist Ailie Robertson along with Danish folk and jazz players Nikolaj Busk and Ale Carr. They’ll be raising dust in Gairloch, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Inverness before appearing at Celtic Connections (see www.northern-lights-music.com).

Come the spring, Edinburgh’s second TradFest (29 April - 11 May: www.scottishstorytellingcentre.co.uk) takes “Revival and Renaissance” as an apt theme for this year of Referendum, looking at the role of folk traditions during significant moments in Scottish history.

On into the summer, and that Commonwealth Games cultural programme sees a bewildering array of events, not least Grit, a spectacular tribute to the late piper, composer and magic mixer Martyn Bennett, created by award-winning director Cora Bissett and playwright Kieran Hurley, involving dance, theatre and circus artists in Glasgow’s Tramway, then in Mull.

Read more: http://www.scotsman.com/what-s-on/music/folk-and-jazz-music-events-in-scotland-in-2014-1-3256503