Our Autumn season of song and music classes are in full swing – new and returning singers and players are always welcome!

Saturday at 12.15pm, Whistle Class Tutor Helen Forbes, one of Scotland’s finest whistle players.        The class is suitable for all levels, fee £5

 Saturday at 1.30pm,  Fiddle Class Tutor Heather Miranda, an experienced strings teacher and performer. The class is suitable for all levels, fee £5

Tuesday at 2pm, The Wighton Singers Tutor Amy Lord,  experienced tutor and harmony wizard.     A friendly group who just love to sing, fee £5

Online

Saturday 11am

Mixed instrument classes, tutored by MoragAnne Elder, 11am (Payment £5 online or by cheque}

Zoom link   https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85293330814

 

Wednesday 2nd August, 1pm – 2pm. Feis Rois Ceilidh Trail

Feis Rois Ceilidh Trail 2023

Fèis Rois Ceilidh Trail is back!

The Ceilidh Trail is a paid summer job and professional development opportunity for outstanding young traditional musicians. Musicians between the ages of 16 and 25 spend the summer playing music, travelling throughout Scotland and beyond, and gain experience playing for just about every kind of gig under the sun!  Dundee is lucky – we get two chances to see and hear them!

Wednesday 2nd August – Wighton Centre; 1-2pm. Free; donations welcome. Informal Concert

Wednesday 2nd August – HMS Unicorn, Dundee; 7.30pm. £10/£8 (Concession – Over 65/Unwaged)
Ceilidh Dance – https://www.hmsunicorn.org.uk/on-board/events/ceilidh-0208

 

 

Wednesday 5th July: 1.15pm – 1.45pm. Karen Hannah, fiddle.

Talented and popular fiddler Karen Hannah is no stranger to the Wighton, having tutored fiddle class here for more than a decade. She is planning to resume her classes later in the year and we are looking forward to hearing her play, in that great traditional style, on Wednesday!

Saturday April 29th, 11am: Northern Streams – a double bill

Fromseier & Hockings – (Ditte & Sigurd) a Danish Folk Award winning fiddle/guitar/voice duo from Denmark with songs and tunes. They come from the tiny village called Øksendrup, where they also run a small organic orchard and cidery. Their tunes and songs are inspired by their surroundings and the people in them with voices and instruments intertwining, grooving and moving! https://www.fromseierhockings.com/

The Låtmores – Paul Sinclair (fiddle) and Janeta Österberg (accordion) – a Scottish/Finnish duo with a mix of traditional and modern folk tunes including ones they like people to dance to…! They feature ‘Finlandssvensk Musik’ subculture of Finnish folk music in their repertoire as both Janeta and Paul are part of that community. https://www.facebook.com/the.latmores/

 In association with the TMSA (Traditional Music & Song Association of Scotland)

 £5 at the door.

Saturday April 22nd, 11am : Isla Ratcliff Band

Isla Ratcliff is a Scottish fiddle player, singer and composer from Edinburgh. She is
delighted to be touring her debut album ‘The Castalia’, which features traditional and self-composed tunes inspired by the time that she spent in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in 2019.

Described as ‘quite the best debut album that has come this way in a long time’ (The
Living Tradition), Isla’s album expresses her love for the tradition, its ethos of community,and the power of music to bring people together. Isla was a Semi-Finalist in the BBCYoung Traditional Musician of the Year 2022 competition and was nominated for Up and Coming Artist of the Year 2022 at the MG Alba Scots Trad Music Awards. Isla will perform her album and a selection of songs with her trio, featuring Ellen Gira (cello) and Iona Reid(piano).

£5 at the door.

Wighton Harpsichord’s 40th Birthday Concert – 11th March, 11a.m.

This year sees the beautiful Wighton Harpsichord’s  40th Birthday and Friends of Wighton will stage several special events to mark the occasion.

Celebrations begin with a double treat!   Tim Heilbronn will remember (Time) Travels with My Aunt Annette, the distinguished musician who commissioned the instrument. We will then have a delightful harpsichord and baroque violin recital from The Highlands Duo.

 

The Highlands Duo began performing together in 2009 in Freiburg, Germany, where violinist Benjamin Shute and harpsichordist Anastasia Abu Bakar were studying at the Hochschule für Musik. The duo has performed at European venues including Schlosskonzerte Bad Krozingen and Schlossfestspiele Marburg and performed at American institutions including the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music, Dickinson College, Southeast Oklahoma State University, Oklahoma Baptist University, and Ouachita Baptist University.

Anastasia Abu Bakar  studied at the conservatories of Freiburg (BM), Florence, and Frankfurt (MM), She has performed as soloist with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, Janus Ensemble Freiburg, Tactus, Oklahoma Virtuosi, and others.  Recital appearances include the Museo San Marco (Florence), “Notte Bianca” Festival Florence, Schlosskonzerte Bad Krozingen, and, most recently, Bach’s complete Goldberg Variations at Oklahoma City UniversityShe has also served as a répétiteur for theater and oratorio productions including Scarlatti’s La Colpa, il Pentimento, la Grazia for the 2013 Rheingau Musik Festival. A specialist in the various national styles of basso continuo, she has published realizations for Blavet’s Op. 2 sonatas as well as J. S. Bach’s D-major Sinfonia (BWV 1045) and youthful G-minor fugue for violin and continuo (BWV 1026) though PRB Productions.

Violinist Benjamin Shute began performing on period instruments as a teenager after attending the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute in Ohio. During subsequent studies at the New England Conservatory (DMA, BM) and the conservatories of Freiburg and Frankfurt, he studied with Rainer Kussmaul, Bernhard Forck, Masuko Ushioda, and Lucy Chapman and served as co-founder/director of the New England Conservatory Early Music Society. He has performed internationally on modern and period instruments as chamber musician, soloist with orchestras in the States and Europe in concertos from the 17th to 20th centuries, and concertmaster of ensembles including the Boston Chamber Orchestra, Oklahoma Virtuosi, TACTUS ensemble, and numerous ad hoc modern- and period-instrument ensembles on both sides of the Atlantic.

Tim Heilbronn, oldest nephew of harpsichordist Annette Heilbron (n), graduated in Crop Protection from the University of Bath in 1979, then joined the British Antarctic Survey as Terrestrial Biologist on South Georgie where there are no crops to protect. The environment, however, did prepare him well for the climate of the east coast of Scotland. Where he joined SCRI (now James Hutton Institute) in 1983.  Tim joined the University of Dundee in 2007 as SIPR Business Director, retiring in 2019. He is Past President of the Rotary Club of Dundee; Past Charity Convenor of the Nine Incorporated Trades of Dundee; Past Deacon of the Dyers Craft and now spends his time making Haggis- Hunting Whistles

The Wighton Harpsichord is a French double-manual instrument after the C18 maker Nicholas Blanchet. It was commissioned by the distinguished musician Annette Heilbron, a founder member of the National Early Music Association and the Helicon Ensemble, and built by Mark Stevenson, Cambridge 1983 and purchased for the Wighton shortly after the Centre opened.

Since arriving in the Wighton Heritage  Centre, the instrument has been kept in tune and good repair by FoW Members, and professional musicians, Simon Chadwick and, currently, Mark Spalding, who is curating the celebration programme.

Lunchtime Recital: Wednesday 1st February, 2pm with Rosa Michaelson & Colin Allison

The Friends of Wighton are delighted to announce the first Lunchtime Recital of 2023 and it is a cracker!

 Lunchtime Recital: Wednesday 1st February, 2pm – 2.30pm, entry free, donations welcome.

Rosa Michaelson, fiddle, and Colin Allison, guitar

Rosa Michaelson and Colin Allison, fiddle and guitar, playing a selection of tunes from James S. Kerr’s “Merry Melodies”, an influential set of music books published in Glasgow, dating from 1881 onwards.

Rosa and Colin are experienced musicians with a range of styles, including folk, classical and jazz. They have played in various Scottish folk and ceilidh bands, including “The Loose Moose Ceilidh Band”.  Rosa first learnt Scottish traditional music at primary school, initially from “Kerr’s Merry Melodies”, a set of tune books which she has recently revisited in the context of 19th Century music publishing in Scotland. She subsequently played with the Edinburgh Shetland Fiddlers and Tom Anderson in Shetland. In the 1980s, she was a member of “Sprangeen”, the first all-female Scottish traditional ensemble. Colin currently plays with Louisiana Fairytale, a New Orleans inspired jazz group, and the Dundee University Big Band.

Ensemble Hesperi present music from their debut CD “Full of Highland Humours”: Thursday 17th November, 2.15pm

Ensemble Hesperi is a London-based Early Music ensemble specialising in Scottish Baroque music and more!  They are no strangers to the Wighton Centre or to the Wighton Collection which has been a great resource for their work.

Ensemble Hesperi  are Mary-Jannet Leith – Recorders; Magdalena Loth-Hill – Baroque Violin; Florence Petit – Baroque Cello; Thomas Allery – Harpsichord

Tickets £5 at the door

Zoom Lunchtime Recital 2nd February 2022 with MoragAnne Elder and Elisabeth Flett

The Lunchtime Recital on Wednesday 2nd February, 1.15pm -1.45pm will be given by mother and daughter duo MoragAnne Elder and Elisabeth Flett, playing fiddles and singing a selection of tunes to do with winter and the North.   

Both, of course, are long time friends of the Wighton, MoragAnne currently running the mixed instruments class and Essa  who has grown up coming to Wighton classes and whose musical career we follow with great interest and pride.  

Essa is taking part in the Danny Kyle Open Stage online at the end of the month – her slot is on January 31st at 5pm on Celtic Radio and you can listen in here: https://www.celticmusicradio.net

The concert is free – donations can be made at    Friends of Wighton – Scottish music in Dundee

and the link is

Topic: Wednesday Wighton Lunchtime concert
Time: Feb 2, 2022 01:00 PM London

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87820161927

1st December Lunchtime Zoom Recital with Shona Donaldson and Paul Anderson

For our last concert of 2021 Friends of Wighton can’t provide the usual mincepies and chocolates but we are offering a very special pre-Christmas Zoom treat!     Our guests are the award-winning traditional singer Shona Donaldson and the far-famed Tarland fiddler Paul Anderson MBE.

Shona Donaldson grew up in Huntly in a musical family, learning the fiddle and attending traditional music festivals including Strichen and Keith. As well as picking up the usual song repertoire, Shona also learned from bothy ballad singers like Jock Duncan and Geordie Murison. Soon, to the delight of her mentors she was winning prizes in the normally male–dominated  bothy ballad world. 

In 2015, Shona became the first woman to win the coveted Bothy Ballad Champion of Champions title to add to her 2009 Scots Singer of the Year award. She is also an accomplished songwriter.

Paul Anderson MBE is widely regarded as the finest fiddle player of his generation. Having found, at age five, an old French violin under the spare bed in his grandparents’ house, he has gone on from there to win all the major fiddle prizes including the Glenfiddich Scottish Fiddle Championship.

Paul has toured extensively here and abroad and is also well-known as a composer with over 300 works including many for film, television and theatre.  His 8 solo albums and over 40 album with other musicians have received international acclaim.

Since lockdown began the couple, who recently celebrated their 14th wedding anniversary, have produced  86 “Live from the Lounge” shows from the Tarland home they share with sons Hector and Roderick.  These can be checked out on Paul’s Facebook page.

Sheena Wellington is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Lunchtime Recital with Shona Donaldson, traditional singer, and Paul Anderson MBE, fiddle 

Wednesday 1st December 1.15pm – 1.45pm (Zoom available from 1pm)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81867139033?pwd=M3dmd3ErcnZwdVU0KzJyeWVDck5FUT09

Meeting ID: 818 6713 9033
Passcode: 057619

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