Amy Laurenson - Strands (2024)

Amy Laurenson, a piano player from the Shetland Isles, opened the evening with her band, launching her debut album, Strands. She played plenty of tunes from her home tradition and a particularly excellent set of three tunes – Four Filskettes in a Fiesta/Tommy’s Trabukas/Trip to Miriam’s – written respectively by fiddle players Jenna Reid, Alasdair Fraser and Colin Farrell. Amy drew on other styles, including jazz and classical, but never strayed far from the core melodies. Her playing was exceptional and quite mesmerising.

Celtic Fiddle Festival could be said to exemplify the intra-Celtic part of the Connections that shape this Festival. Formed in 1993, originally to do one U.S. tour, they reconvene periodically. The line-up has changed several times, most recently when Breton fiddle player Yuna Léon replaced founder member Christian Lemaitre, joining fellow fiddle players the Bothy Band’s Kevin Burke (Ireland) and Capercaillie’s Charlie McKerron (Scotland) and guitarist Nicolas Quemener (Brittany).

After a sprightly set of Irish jigs, including the popular Battering Ram, Kevin Burke introduced Yuna Léon as their newest member, explaining that health issues meant Christian Lemaitre had been unable to continue touring. They proceeded to play Suite De Loudeac, a lively set of Breton dance tunes Christian had brought to the band in recognition of his longstanding contribution. The band have made a new album, from which they played two tracks: Sylvia’s Garden, an appreciative track written by Kevin for a friend’s horticulturalist wife, and Soggy’s/Waterboogie, a wistful set of slip jigs written by guitarist Seán Óg Graham.

A glorious set of six Breton tunes was explained by Nicolas as a ‘promenade’ from the south to the north of Brittany, playing tunes from each main area in the region. Scotland’s Johnny Cunningham was the band’s third founding fiddle player who died at a shockingly young age, 20 years ago. They played Leaving Brittany and Pernod’s Waltz, two lovely waltzes he wrote in tribute to him.

Kevin Burke described Simon Jeffes’s (Penguin Cafe Orchestra) widely played Music For A Found Harmonium as the band’s theme tune, and they played it in a very entertaining way, interspersing it with a few bars from a bunch of other tunes on which they took turns to lead, shifting through multiple styles and tempos. The mix of musical backgrounds, ability to fully step into each other’s way of playing, range of tunes, and top-class musicianship all made for a highly engaging and enjoyable evening of fiddle music.