We had good weekend in...
We had good weekend in London last week. Dave Milligan and I were taking part in Radio 3's celebration of Judith Weir called 'Telling the Tale'. Our first concert was on Thursday night at St Lukes and I had enjoyed rehearsing during the day. When we got onto stage I noticed something was wrong in the first number when my 'b' stopped working. This is never good but terrible when you are playing in E minor and E major. I had to finish the set and then get my screwdriver out while Dave chatted to the audience who were thankfully very understanding. This made the rest of the set rather nervy from my part as I was never sure if something else would go wrong!
Our next gig was in the Barbican and we were going out live on Radio 3 in the evening. We were only playing for 10 minutes but it felt distinctly nervy because of the previous evening. In the end it all went well. I felt we both played great and after the concert the manager of the BBC Symphony was interested in discussing a future collaboration between us. We definitely had a skip in our steps and landed in a lovely Italian restaurant for some great pizza.
Next up is Brussells on Thursday. Hands Up for Trad have organised a Burn's concert for the Scottish Government in Europe and we are taking over Fred Freeman and his band to talk and sing about Burns. This will be great fun.
When I get home on Friday it is straight into the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician Award finals. This is always an exciting time and again we have a great bunch of guys this year. We're using two new accompanists for the final this year - Kevin MacKenzie on guitar and Mark Maguire on bodhran. They will both work alongside regular Harris Playfair (piano). The concert on Sunday will be opened by Linda Fabiani MSP, Minister for Culture who did a great job of opening the Scots Trad Music Awards in December. To read more about the Young Trad please visit http://www.handsupfortrad.co.uk/press/Young_Traditional_Musician_finalists_2008.htm
Roll on Monday...
