“25 +2” - the Scots Fiddle Festival Legacy Project

The Context

This Project came out of a wish in 2020, on reaching our 25th Birthday, to to leave a more permanent marker of the milestone, (rather than just the remnants of a birthday party), and one which would give a worthwhile and lasting outcome for Scots Fiddle music.

We initially settled on producing a Collection of 25 new or recent tunes; each by a current fiddle playing composer, and each representing a year of our existence.

Then came COVID.

No Birthday Festival, no 2021 Festival, lockdowns and Zoom.

During this time, the tune collection progressed; becoming the first phase of our Legacy Project, which evolved as lockdown went on. We were also delighted to be the source of a wee bit of income to the composers during this time.

Finally, in 2022, we were able to hold our delayed Birthday Festival, two years late, and added two more tunes to The Collection for these Covid years, resulting in The 25+2 Collection.

The Project

The core concept of The Project is to create - and continuously develop - a new and current  Scots Fiddle Music resource, targeted at schools and community groups, but available to all, to encourage the playing of Scots Fiddle Music.

This is being done by means of providing a ready-made ‘plug and play’ pack of tunes, arranged into performance sets; including a recording of them being played by a professional band and the music score of the arrangements used. These have initially been arranged for fiddles, guitar, bass and keyboard. Additional parts are being added where needed, so that a learner can play their part alongside more accomplished players in any performance.

User groups will be encouraged to add their own arrangements into the pot, and agree to us making these available to others to help grow the resource, with other instruments welcomed.

The resource will be added to each year with new tunes from each year’s Youth Engagement Project’s tutor; arranged by the participants and recorded at the Festival performance by the group - thus growing the resource and keeping it current.

Ous vision is that music teachers, community group leaders or others can easily access a complete set of music for a performance; with ready-made arrangements to suit the range of (initially stringed - then who knows - brass, woodwind, pipes ??) instruments available to them - from fiddle solo to big band!

What people are saying about the 25+2 Legacy Project

“Marking the 25th year of the Scots Fiddle Festival, delayed by 2 years because of You Know What, this collection of 27 tunes is presented by a band of Scotland/s finest: Jenna Reid, Graham Mackenzie and Adam Sutherland on fiddles, Anna Massie on guitar, Brian McAlpine on keys, and double bass from James Lindsay. The sound is great, the performances are catchy as winter 'flu, and the tunes are all recent compositions by people who have appeared at the festival at least once.

Scottish music through and through, from Shetland to the Borders, with a brief detour to include the punchy ‘Patti Fahey's Slide’ by the prodigious Chicago Irish fiddler Liz Carroll - whose 2019 apearance in Edinburgh was a real highlight - the pieces are thoughtfully arranged into eleven tracks. The overall character of this collection is definitely contemporary Scots fiddle, with a wide range of material but mostly played in a style somewhere between Edinburgh and the West Coast to my ears - not so much North East or Northern Isles delivery, although there are plenty of tunes included from those areas.

Listening through the whole album is a rare pleasure, but you may also wish to concentrate on learning a particular tune: there is a companion book available (helpfully ring-bound) with all the melodies and suggested chords, as well as notes on the background or inspiration for each piece. This 25th anniversary initiative will be added to by providing the pieces used for the annual Youth Engagement Project on the SFF website; building up a body of tunes. Judging by the current crop, they'll all be first class: from Bruce MacGregor's ‘The Ox’ which always reminds me of The Animals' ‘Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood’, to the final ‘Giant Ship’ by Mike Vass, every composition here is a cracker. Reels and jigs, waltzes and airs, hornpipes and strathspeys - man, it's all good.

Picking favourites is guaranteed to upset some people - but what the hell, it's Christmas! Chris Stout's ‘Hamnataing’ is a tune I've always loved, and Ross Couper's ‘Melbourne’ is another great find from the frozen north. On the gentler side, ‘Evie's Waltz’ by Amy Geddes is a real beauty, and Lauren MacColl's ‘Still, Skye’ is brim-full of Hebridean mysticism; well-hidden on the album, although quite unrelated to illicit whisky. There's a 7/8 of course, followed by the 6/4 of Patsy Reid's lovely ‘Springa Like Marit’, and stacks of reels where the contributions by Sally Simpson, Marie Fielding and Jonny Hardie stood out for me. A wonderful milestone for the Scots Fiddle Festival in 2022, and a great resource for future fiddlers, The 25+2 Collection should be well received worldwide.”

Alex Monaghan, December 2022