A brand new series of programmes currently being made by Stornoway-based mactv celebrates the fantastic continuing development and talent of young people playing traditional music in Scotland. Music for four iTRAD programmes, featuring eight young groups, is being filmed in Ullapool.
The programmes celebrate the place of young people in the traditional music scene of Scotland today. The Fèisean movement changed the status of traditional music forever in young people's lives. In the last ten years traditional music in Scotland has taken further steps on a journey that few could have ever imagined, exposing a new generation of performers as a driving force. Due to the musical skills and influence of many tutors, organisers and encouragers leading to the emergence of specialist courses at school and degree level, there is now a musical literacy and fluency never seen before.
With the influence of Capercaillie, Boys of The Lough, and more recently the Peatbog Faeries, Croft No 5, Session A9, Lau and the latest sensation The Treacherous Orchestra there is a major move among young Scottish musicians to achieve in a much more competitive market. The bar for musicians has risen higher and the market has expanded.
iTRAD introduces our TV audience to some exceptionally talented young people. Not all will choose to go on to be full time musicians but their skills will stay with them forever. They are all at the end of their school careers and the eight bands have been formed either as Fèis Ceilidh Trails or as school or college bands, some only for one season. This gives them a wealth of experience about performing and recording combined with their Gaelic language and musical skills.
In this series the bands are drawn from the Fèis an Earraich, Fèis Rois and Caledonian Canal Ceilidh Trails, the Traditional Music School of Excellence at Plockton High School, Glasgow Gaelic-medium school, Fèis Eilean an Fhraoich and Benbecula College.
Director of mactv Ann Morrison said that “as programme makers we feel that we are celebrating something remarkable and wonderful through this series, music played with love and enthusiasm leading to a deeper understanding of our own culture.”
For more information on Fèisean see their website