First ever Gaelic Christmas album launched on final day of Royal National Mod...

The Mairi Mhor Fellowship for The Highland Council is once more breaking new ground in making Gaelic song accessible to as many people throughout the world as possible. The Fellowship has recently produced the world’s first ever double Gaelic Christmas album, Duan Nollaig, which was launched on the 20th October during the MOD and is being released on the Greentrax label, in a bid to enable as many people to enjoy and learn Gaelic Christmas carols and songs.

Fiona Mackenzie (pictured), the Mairi Mhòr Fellow said: “Since I began working in the Fellowship 5 years ago, I have been inundated with requests from all over the world from people looking for recordings and lyrics of Gaelic carols but to date there is no such resource available apart from the odd track on various ‘Celtic’ compilation albums. There is no dedicated Christmas collection. I was particularly struck by the lack of resources available for teachers in the Highlands and Islands in Gaelic medium classes. I decided that we should go ahead and make an album of songs but to look beyond the usual ‘traditional’ horizon and try to showcase Gaelic Christmas music to audiences who would not normally listen to Gaelic or folk music.

“To this end, we obtained the services of Irvin Duguid from Glasgow, as producer, who is a well known musical director on the musical theatre front across Britain and also a very well known composer of film scores. He is also an exceptional pianist and keyboard player in his own right. Irvin came to the project with no pre-conceptions of what Gaelic song should be and so was open to all musical styles and cultures. He brought with him several very well known names from the musical world outside of Gaelic including John Goldie, world renowned jazz and classical guitarist, Ed McFarlane, well known session bass player and Jim Drummond, drummer and percussionist, who plays in the Donnie Munro band amongst others. We have also used the talents, of course, of many well known traditional musicians and singers including Anna Massie, Gary Innes, Hamish Napier, James Graham, Ronan Martin, Simone Welsh, Katie Mackenzie and Maggie Macdonald and are delighted that we also managed to persuade Capercaillie’s Karen Matheson to guest with me too.”

visit: fionamackenzie.org

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