Hello!  June is jumping...

This week finds Alasdair Fraser in Texas, appearing this Thursday, June 6, at the Cactus Cafe in Austin, and making his annual appearance at the Texas Scottish Festival in Arlington at the weekend (June 7-9).  Alasdair will be accompanied by Natalie Haas on cello on this trip, and during several concert and festival appearances over the summer. (See schedule below.)

Alasdair, Natalie and renowned Scottish dance pianist Muriel Johnstone have just completed recording the music for the second CD in our Legacy of the Scottish Fiddle series.  The trio blends gorgeously on renditions of 18th century Scottish music, featuring dance tunes to which Robert Burns wrote lyrics, and other melodies popular during Burns' day.  Look for the release of Legacy of the Scottish Fiddle, Volume Two this fall!

Our latest release, Skyedance Live in Spain, now also available from Scotland's Greentrax label, continues to attract critical acclaim.  

Just in from BBC Radio:

Skyedance alone are a formidable proposition; add heavyweight Spanish guests in the form of Asturian piper José Manuel Tejedor, Galician singer Mercedes Peón, Basque accordionist Kepa Junkera, Latin Grammy nominee Hevia (midi bagpipes), Joxan Goikoetxea (accordion), Mikel Laboa (vocals) and Oreka TX (txalaparta) and the result is out of this world. This album is the result of a nine-year, two-way love affair between violinist Alasdair Fraser and the country of Spain culminating in a series of three live concerts in October 2000, and every note of it celebrates a musical marriage made in heaven.

The keyword is passion: instruments, voices, words, spirit. From start to finish superb musicianship, powerful emotional complexity, exuberance. The recording is dedicated to inter-cultural collaboration and it's that at its best. Standout tracks in a standout album: Mercedes Peon's heart-stoppingly beautiful Marabilla; Stoney Run in which Eric Rigler's pipes, the Basque txalaparta (a wooden instrument played by two people with mallets) and Peter Maund's percussion run a Celtic-jazz riot with fiddle, flute and bass; Paul Machlis' Basque-flavoured Donostia, opening with the strange, magical sound of duetting Asturian and Uilleann pipes; Alasdair Fraser's rich, majestic, soaring Theme For Scotland; Cries And Shrieks Of Woe, a wooden flute solo from Chris Norman; The Spark, a mad romp from the full weight of Skyedance with Hevia's Asturian pipes and Joxan Goikoetxea's accordion...it's hard to stop.

The 8+ minute finale gives full rein to uproarious high-energy party-pieces. And the production is superb - you can't better the combination of a storming live performance with an excellent mix from the desk. The explosion of superlatives in this review is unavoidable. I've started measuring albums in levels of Grin Factor lately. This one is off the scale.

Review by  Mel McClellan, May 2002