Rosemary Barry writes:
To a packed house Katy Crossan and Mairi Campbell provided a well organised and entertaining session alternating between fiddle music and Gaelic singing. Mairi described travelling to Cape Breton Island in Canada and the Scottish culture and people she encountered there. She found the Cape Breton style of fiddle playing vey fast with the music rougher and based on a different ‘super natural’ scale. In 1937 there were apparently 10,000 people there with Gaelic as their first language while here it was in decline.
Katy movingly sang a variety of Gaelic songs unaccompanied inviting the audience to join in where they knew the words. At one point she successfully organised them into three groups each practicing a different part to then be sung sequentially whilst she sang a fast and different tune over the top. Amazing.
In between playing Mairi demonstrated the ‘step dancing’ tradition which had remained over there whilst all but lost this side of the Atlantic. At one point she danced on the spot whilst Katy sang, getting faster and faster. Her fiddle playing was interspersed with Cape Breton anecdotes including an example of a series of instruments made from the wood from one tree. Poignantly she included a song she wrote in memory of Duncan Livingstone which was much appreciated by the audience.