The Tannahill Weavers To Perform Traditional Scottish Music
One of Scotland’s finest traditional Celtic bands returns to Alma College for another performance of traditional Scottish music.
The Tannahill Weavers will perform in the Remick Heritage Center at 8
p.m. Sept. 25. Tickets are $8 for adults and free for Alma College
staff, students and youth 18 and under. Call (989) 463-7304 between 1
and 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays to reserve tickets.
“Students as well as community members who haven't heard them need to
know they play everything from the sweetest of ballads to some of the
best ‘Scottish rock-n-roll’ I've ever heard,” said James Mueller, a
faculty member who serves on the College’s Co-curricular Committee.
Performing traditional Scottish airs, reels, jigs and ballads spanning
the centuries, the Tannahill Weavers are the first professional
Scottish folk group to successfully add a full-sized highland bagpipe
to its live stage performances.
The group’s last visit to campus in 2000 filled Presbyterian Hall in
the Remick Heritage Center acoustically and otherwise, said Mueller.
“This is not a night to be missed if you enjoy Scottish folk music,” he said.
The band consists of Roy Gullane on guitar and vocals; Phil Smillie on
flute, whistles, bodhran and vocals; John Martin on fiddle; Les Wilson
on keyboards, guitar and vocals; and Colin Melville on highland
bagpipes, Scottish small pipes and whistles.
With a name derived from a local poet laureate, Robert Tannahill
(1774-1810), and the weaving industry from their home town of Paisley,
the band combines “…tradition with the spirit and energy of rock ’n’
roll into an entertaining and satisfying evening of music, humor and
joy,” according to the News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C.
After their concert in Alma, the Tannies will head up to Interlochen
and then to Ann Arbor before continuing their world tour, which
includes performances in Belgium, Denmark, England, Scotland, Wales,
Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland.
“…No band of their ilk has performed with more energy or authority than
the Tannies, who blend guitar, mandolin, bouzouki, fiddle, whistles,
bodhran and pipes into a lilting product as fine and enduring as the
textiles woven by namesake weavers of their Scottish hometown,
Paisley,” according to the Westword in Denver, Colo.
The group has won various awards, including the Scotstar Award for Folk
Record of the Year for their album “The Tannahill Weavers, “and
“Capernaum” won the 1994 Indie Award in the USA for Celtic Album of the
Year from the National Association of Independent Record Distributors
and Manufacturers. The band also was a finalist of the Scots
Traditional Music Awards in 2004.
Posted: Fri, September 22nd, 2006 at 7:52AM
