news & gigs | CATRIONA MCKAY | Catriona McKay 2014

Harp scores for download!

Mon, 24 Aug 2015 13:04:11 +0100

SWAN LK243 now available to buy and download!

Please contact Catriona if you have any requests or commecnts on the scores or download process.

BUY & DOWNLOAD SWAN LK243 here (Advanced, Intermediate, tune & chords versions)

OTHER SCORES

CCA Ceòl's Craic gig photos by Kris Kesiak

Mon, 13 Jul 2015 11:22:05 +0100

Top photographer Kris Kesiak was there to document the recent CCA, Ceòl's Craic gig.

Thanks to Kris Kesiak for permission to display these images.

Art Institute of Chicago, exhibition short film

Thu, 19 Mar 2015 22:43:33 +0000

Ireland: Crossroads of Art and Design, 1690–1840

Tuesday, March 17, 2015–Sunday, June 7, 2015

Regenstein Hall, Art Institute of Chicago

Music composed by Liz Carroll.

Liz Carroll (fiddle), Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill (piano), Liz Knowles (fiddle), Kieran O'Hare (Irish pipes), Catriona McKay (harp)

New film and recording from Catriona & Chris

Fri, 20 Feb 2015 22:56:24 +0000

‘Louise’s Waltz’ composed by Catriona in the beautiful surroundings of a cottage in Cellardyke in the East Neuk of Fife, Scotland.

GRIT on BBC iPlayer

Fri, 23 Jan 2015 12:33:31 +0000

Celtic Connections Opening Concert: Martyn Bennett's Grit

watch here on BBC iPlayer

Review: Nae Regrets, Celtic Connections opening concert, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

Friday 16 January 2015

Our verdict: five stars

Back in the early days of Celtic Connections there seemed every possibility that, one day, Martyn Bennett might provide the festival's opening concert and do so triumphantly. And 10 years after his tragically early death, his music delivered the way he might have intended.

Even in these days when eclecticism is commonplace, Bennett's final album, Grit, is an unlikely comingling. It takes quite some imagination to put a Dundee street song, Gregorian chant, Gaelic psalm singing, the soundtrack of a souk and a traveller's storytelling into the same musical recipe.

That, though, is just a fraction of the detail that Bennett stirred into Grit and if it gave sleepless nights to the man, Greg Lawson, who orchestrated these ingredients with the massive grooves and sweeps that Bennett produced electronically, Lawson can now rest easy.

He pulled off this spectacular undertaking and did it entirely in the spirit of Bennett's questing ethos. The double bass section will quite likely never have to put as much elbow grease into another piece - ever - and in among the throbbing landscapes there were passages, as was Bennett's way, of gorgeously affecting beauty.

Art Institute of Chicago

Fri, 23 Jan 2015 11:04:30 +0000

Catriona was invited to record music written by top Irish fiddler and composer Liz Carroll along with Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill (piano), Liz Knowles (fiddle) & Kieran O'Hare (Irish pipes) for a forthcoming exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. The cd will be available to buy from the on-site shop during the exhibition.

Ireland: Crossroads of Art and Design, 1690–1840

Tuesday, March 17, 2015–Sunday, June 7, 2015

Regenstein Hall,

Art Institute of Chicago

Seavaigers on BBC Radio 3, CD Review

Fri, 23 Jan 2015 10:59:04 +0000

Andrew McGregor played a track from Seavaigers on CD review, BBC Radio 3.

Listen to the programme here via the BBC iPlayer Radio (for the next 24 days)

Catriona is featured artist on FolkWaves

Thu, 18 Dec 2014 00:56:18 +0000

FolkWaves is a new Hands Up for Trad project that aims to promote Scottish traditional music to radio stations / podcasts all over the world. Sign up to the FolkWaves newsletter to keep informed with new music releases from Scotland.

visit the website here

Catriona awarded Scots Trad Music Instrumentalist of the Year 2014

Thu, 18 Dec 2014 00:05:14 +0000

Catriona is delighted to have been awarded Intrumentalist of the Year 2014 at the Scots Trad Music Awards. The awards ceremony was a wonderful celebration of Scottish music, held this year in Inverness. Fiddlers’ Bid openend the show with 2 new sets from their forthcoming album.

You can watch the awards cermemony on BBC ALBA on the BBC player here

photo by Louis De Carlo

Catriona nominated Instrumentalist of the Year, MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards 2014

Wed, 12 Nov 2014 22:55:04 +0000

Catriona has been nominated in the Instrumentalist of the year category at the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards 2014. The aim of these Awards is to highlight Scotland's wonderful traditional music in all its forms and to create a high profile opportunity which will bring the music and music industry into the spotlight of media & public attention.

Find out about the awards and all the fun in Scottish music by visiting the Scots Trad Music Awards website.

Cast your vote here!

http://projects.scottishcultureonline.com/scotstradmusicawards/voting/

Voting closes 28th November 2014

The 12th MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards and Gala Concert is on 13th December 2014, Inverness Leisure Centre. Buy tickets here

Begley McKay Stout, Irish Times Album of the Week & Review

Wed, 22 Oct 2014 14:01:51 +0100

Sometimes the magic happens when you least expect it. Scottish fiddle and harp duo Chris Stout and Catriona McKay ventured to undertake an Irish tour with Seamus Begley, whom they’d long admired, and what emerged from the union has proven to be a revelation both in the studio and on the road.

Following the triumph of that recent tour (where the delicacy of Begley’s voice was beautifully circumnavigated by McKay’s gloriously hip-swivelling harp rhythms and by the deep troughs of Stout’s fiddle lines), the trio have left a rich bequest. It’s a purple patch for all three that’s worthy of exploration. Take their marriage of Laybourne’s Hornpipe with the reel McFadden’s Handsome Daughter: both share a loping, improvisational quality rooted in an energy that propels the tunes onwards. Begley’s song choices are worthy of the attention afforded them in arrangement: the opener, Annan Waters, basks in the warmth of Stout and McKay’s strings, its richly Byronic lyricism thrown into sharp relief by the delicacy of Stout’s viola. Catriona McKay’s possession of the harp is without compare, bristling with vitality and rhythmic intensity. Stout and Begley’s duet on Rowin’ Foula Doon mines the emotional depths of a seafaring tradition of that Shetland Island where fishermen rowed out until they were no longer able to see the cliffs of Foula. Their vocals make cosy bedfellows. Stout and McKay have recently released a maritime-themed album of newly composed music, Seavaigers. Now, they explore similar seafaring themes, but in the company of an accordionist and singer whose reach is as wide as it is welcoming. This is music of the moment: bristling with the excitement of newly minted camaraderie and bolting towards the door for the wide open spaces it craves. And yet, there’s a finesse to the collection. mckaystoutmusic.co.uk

Swan LK243, new YouTube vidoes

Sun, 31 Aug 2014 12:01:49 +0100

Thank you to musicians the world over who are playing Catriona’s composition Swan LK243.

Please check the playlist to enjoy some newly uploaded performances.

Please contact Catriona if you upload your own version so it can be included in the playlist.

SWAN LK243 PLAYLIST

Andy Crabb, Songs of the Scottish Sea Films

Sun, 31 Aug 2014 11:01:00 +0100

Catriona & Chris are making new music for Scottish film maker Andy Crabb’s project, Òrain na Mara, Songs of the Scottish Sea.

Herald Angel Award 2014

Sun, 31 Aug 2014 10:56:54 +0100

Catriona McKay & Chris Stout were awarded a Herald Angel award for their Edinburgh Fringe 2014 performance.

http://www.herald-events.com/heraldangels/winners-2014/

Herald Angel Awards 2014

BEGLEY McKAY STOUT, new cd available now

Sun, 31 Aug 2014 10:52:08 +0100

Catriona McKay & Chris Stout collaborate with Séamus Begley for new cd and Irish tour supported by Music Network.

On this fine recording, the ancient Gaelic world of Séamus Begley’s West Kerry reaches through musically diverse Scotland, onto the Shetland Islands and well beyond. At once intimate and playful, this collaboration makes sense of the bridges that span the Celtic realm.

- Brian O’Donovan

Now available to buy from CODA MUSIC

SEAVAIGERS cd available

Sun, 22 Jun 2014 22:36:15 +0100

SEAVAIGERS cd is availble to buy now from CODA MUSIC

HARPONIUM, Kronos Reel film

Sun, 04 May 2014 01:03:17 +0100

EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL HARP FESTIVAL Review *****

Sun, 04 May 2014 01:00:32 +0100

JUST three musicians featured in this Edinburgh International Harp Festival Concert, but between them they encompassed a wonderfully wide world of music, teeming with both virtuoso technique and captivating musicality.

Catriona McKay and Olov Johansson/Sixto Corbalán - Merchiston Castle School, edinburgh

*****

A proud aspect of the Harp Festival’s 32-year history is its long track record of showcasing Paraguayan artists, enabling that country’s distinctively rich national tradition – developed by local musicians from the instruments that accompanied Jesuit missionaries there in the 17th and 18th centuries – to feed fruitfully into Scotland’s recent leaps-and-bounds harp revival.

Interestingly, in contrast to their Celtic counterparts, some 90 percent of Paraguayan harpists are men, but this year’s festival ambassador Sixto Corbalán (performing in front of Paraguay’s actual UK ambassador, who’d flown up especially from London) proved he could do sublimely delicate and ethereal with the best of them – as he could just about everything else, it seemed, in terms of conjuring magic from plucked strings.

His mix of folk-based material, national repertoire classics and contemporary compositions, some original, took in a thrilling sweep of dynamic, textural and emotional contrasts, from bare-knuckle bassy attack to exquisitely pretty playfulness, tangy jazz tones to country-blues licks, clamorous drama to shimmering serenity: his standing ovation was thoroughly earned.

HARPONIUM, Roof of the World film

Sat, 03 May 2014 01:29:09 +0100

SEAVAIGERS short film

Mon, 28 Apr 2014 14:22:39 +0100

Seavaigers: Chris Stout / Catriona McKay / Scottish Ensemble / Sally Beamish

The story of Sally Beamish's 'Seavaigers' featuring fiddler Chris Stout, harper Catriona McKay and the Scottish Ensemble.

The double concerto for Shetland fiddle and Scottish harp tells the story of a vivid sea journey from Dundee to Shetland and atmospherically depicts the birds, dolphins, fears and adventures of a spectacular North Sea voyage.

Upcoming performances:

Perth Concert Hall / 29 April
The Arches, Glasgow / 30 April
The Assembly Rooms / 1 May
Village Underground, Spitalfields Festival, London / 18 June
Royal Welsh College of Music, Cardiff / 19 June