Chris Stout & Catriona McKay Queen's Hall Edinburgh 24th February 2024 Review
Chris Stout and Catriona McKay were at the Queen’s Hall Edinburgh tonight with a very varied selection of music, with some of the newer works performed heading to the recording studio with them later in the year.
As always with their music, there is a combination of many musical styles and influences and those strong roots in traditional music fusing with classical forms and often unexpected, at times almost avant-garde, explorations into just what a fiddle and a harp can sound like. Whatever the style of music, whatever its inspirational source, there is always that fusion of two musicians that know each other so well that an intuitive flow of music always flows between them.
Much of the music on tonight’s set list was of a very personal nature, often dedicated to close friends or to people and places that have inspired Chris Stout and Catriona McKay either individually or together.
The landscape and its people and history are so often sources of inspiration for musicians and the opening song in this set “Tingaholm” is one such example. Chris always takes care to explain a little bit of what inspires the music and finding out that Tingaholm (also known as Law Ting Holm) was the location of Shetland's local parliament until the late 16th century was something new to me. This power that the landscape has to inspire their music was also evident in the second set tonight with their very personal extended musical postcard to Glenshee.
Amongst the music written for friends performed tonight there was also “Bare Knuckle”. Inspired by boxer Charlie Flynn, this music is at times almost a musical duel between Chris Stout and Catriona McKay, at times even a sparring match and perfectly suited to the subject matter.
With one exception, this was a display of what two very individual and very talented musicians with an ability to play their instruments in many different musical styles and genres can do either as a duo or individually. The one exception to this was a short solo performance on harp by Catriona McKay of two works that were in part inspired by water and, for me, the harp with its almost liquid sounds was the perfect instrument for this task.
This was a performance that had a little bit of everything. For the very traditional there were of course the reels and waltzes that you would expect from two of traditional music’s best musicians, but there were often times when both Chris and Catriona were taking their instruments into a soundscape that you would not expect and this is the strength of their music, that ability to stand firmly on the sounds of the past and also create new ones for the future.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
As always with their music, there is a combination of many musical styles and influences and those strong roots in traditional music fusing with classical forms and often unexpected, at times almost avant-garde, explorations into just what a fiddle and a harp can sound like. Whatever the style of music, whatever its inspirational source, there is always that fusion of two musicians that know each other so well that an intuitive flow of music always flows between them.
Much of the music on tonight’s set list was of a very personal nature, often dedicated to close friends or to people and places that have inspired Chris Stout and Catriona McKay either individually or together.
The landscape and its people and history are so often sources of inspiration for musicians and the opening song in this set “Tingaholm” is one such example. Chris always takes care to explain a little bit of what inspires the music and finding out that Tingaholm (also known as Law Ting Holm) was the location of Shetland's local parliament until the late 16th century was something new to me. This power that the landscape has to inspire their music was also evident in the second set tonight with their very personal extended musical postcard to Glenshee.
Amongst the music written for friends performed tonight there was also “Bare Knuckle”. Inspired by boxer Charlie Flynn, this music is at times almost a musical duel between Chris Stout and Catriona McKay, at times even a sparring match and perfectly suited to the subject matter.
With one exception, this was a display of what two very individual and very talented musicians with an ability to play their instruments in many different musical styles and genres can do either as a duo or individually. The one exception to this was a short solo performance on harp by Catriona McKay of two works that were in part inspired by water and, for me, the harp with its almost liquid sounds was the perfect instrument for this task.
This was a performance that had a little bit of everything. For the very traditional there were of course the reels and waltzes that you would expect from two of traditional music’s best musicians, but there were often times when both Chris and Catriona were taking their instruments into a soundscape that you would not expect and this is the strength of their music, that ability to stand firmly on the sounds of the past and also create new ones for the future.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
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