Mark Spalding, harpsichord & Haworth Hodgkinson, percussion.
Another chance to hear our beautiful harpsichord and its versatility.
Mark is well known to Wighton audiences from previous appearances. Haworth is a composer and improvising musician, as well as a poet, playwright, and performer of the spoken word.
Admission free, donations 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
Wighton’s own harpsichord specialist, Mark Spalding , will be playing with Dundee’s long established free improvisation group El Search in a programme specially devised as part of the 40th anniversary celebrations.
The Wighton Harpsichord is a French double-manual instrument after the 18th century maker Nicholas Blanchet , commissioned by Annette Heilbron and built by Mark Stevenson, Cambridge , in 1983. This is a great opportunity to hear just how versatile our beautiful instrument can be.
Admission free, donations welcome.
To continue our celebrations of the Wighton Harpsichord’s 40th Birthday The Friends of Wighton are delighted and honoured to welcome one of Scotland’s most distinguished musicians, John Kitchen MBE.
After 27 years as a Senior Lecturer in Music in the University of Edinburgh, having moved there from the University of St Andrews, John Kitchen retired from university teaching, He is an Honorary Fellow in the Reid School of Music and continues as University Organist, as Director of the Edinburgh University Singers, and with the Raymond Russell Collection of Early Keyboard Instruments at St Cecilia’s Hall. John is also Director of Music of Old Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church and Edinburgh City Organist with duties at the Usher Hall. He gives many solo recitals both in the UK and further afield, and also plays regularly with several ensembles covering a wide range of musical styles.
His interest in the harpsichord inspired his doctoral thesis “Harpsichord music of seventeenth century France: the forms, their origins and developments, with particular emphasis on the work of Louis Couperin (1626–1661).
In addition, he is much in demand as a continuo player, accompanist, lecturer, writer, adjudicator and reviewer. John has recorded extensively for both Priory and for the Edinburgh-based label, Delphian Records.
We are very excited that we shall hear him play our lovely harpsichord on Saturday.
Admission is £5 at the door.
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.
Alan Reid, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist. founder member of the legendary Battlefield Band and a Master Storyteller in song.
Glasgow born Alan has been taking Scottish folk music all over the world since 1975. He joined the fledgling Battlefield Band in 1969 while studying at Strathclyde University and subsequently recorded almost 30 albums with this hard-working and enduring band, in that time garnering a reputation for his playing and his singing. His groundbreaking keyboard work helped cement the band’s reputation as one of the most influential Celtic bands of its generation. With the band Alan toured the world, bringing Scottish traditional music to audiences in five continents and playing in many prestigious music festivals and venues. Along with former Battlefield Band colleagues he was inducted into the Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame in November 2016 in recognition of their contribution to Scots traditional music.
He began composing songs and tunes in the 1980s and from 1990 was the band’s principal songwriter. His songs are noted for their strong storytelling element whilst being firmly grounded in Scots history and tradition. His songbook ”Martyrs, Rogues and Worthies”, was published in 2001 and in 2009 he was nominated in the ‘Composer of the Year’ category at the Scots Traditional Music Awards.
In 2010 he left the ‘Batties,’ to concentrate on his duo with guitarist/singer Rob van Sante. He composed all the music for the duo’s third album, ”The Adventures of John Paul Jones’, which told the story of the Scots born mariner who was a hero for the American colonists during the American Revolutionary War. A presentation of the album (with drama written by Alan) was performed at the 2012 Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival and at the 2013 Edinburgh Festival. The duo also developed a multi-media show telling Jones’ story which was showcased at Mystic Seaport Sea Festival in Connecticut in 2015.
2014 saw his music featured in the National Theatre of Scotland’s award winning production of “The Glasgow Girls” musical about asylum seekers, while his singing and speaking talents were featured in “The Life and Times of Scrooge”, the solo album of Finnish rock star Tuomas Holopainen of metal band Nightwish. That same year Alan and Rob’s fourth CD “Rough Diamonds” was released and was followed by “The Dear Green Place” in 2017. The duo continued to perform in Europe, North America and Australia up till 2019 when they played a last tour together of the U.S. West coast. Alan now performs as a soloist while Rob records and sings with his wife Janie.”
In recent years Alan has taught Scots Song at the prestigious annual “Swannanoa Gathering” in North Carolina, USA. He was also a guest artist in the Linn Records mammoth 12 CD recording of the songs of Robert Burns, Scotland’s beloved National Poet, whose poems, songs and music have endured over the centuries.
As well as the recordings with Battlefield Band and with Rob Van Sante, Alan has released two solo albums, “The Sunlit Eye” and “Recollection”.
This photo shows Sheena Wellington introducing today’s lunchtime concert performer, Mark Spalding, who played a very good programme of Ronald Stevenson’s music on piano and harpsichord.
This morning, Mark Spalding presented his diverse and fascinating programme of 20th century keyboard music for this year’s first Friends of Wighton cappuccino concert. To a full audience, Mark presented a selection of compositions played on no fewer than five keyboards – the electric piano, two electronic keyboards, melodica, and the lovely Wighton harpsichord.
Mark was joined by Haworth Hodgkinson who provided improvised percussion responses to each of the 12 sections of the Stockhausen “Tierkreis” (signs of the zodiac) cycle. The alternation of the very quick, complex, almost mechanistic keyboard sections, each played on a different instrument, with the very free and impressionistic and very loud gong percussion interludes, was really striking, and helped very much this music to become intelligible and accessible to all present. I think quite a few people were very surprised to hear the atonal Stockhausen music played on the harpsichord!
Howarth also performed two lively and thoughtful pieces of his own poetry with instrumental accompaniment, one played on a giant bass recorder and one played on a gas bottle.
In his concise but useful spoken introductions to each work, Mark made a number of interesting connections with Dundee for many of the pieces. The suite by Morris Pert which opened the programme was very well played, and it was a great pleasure to have the composer Eddie McGuire present for Mark’s playing of a couple of his piano and organ works.
