Orchestra Macaroon
- Breakfast in Balquhidder
Easdale Island may just have witnessed the birth of a new music phenomenon
this week.
On Saturday 24th July Orchestra Macaroon played their first official
gig at the new village hall.
There was standing room only in the packed hall, spontaneous dancing
and rapturous applause,
as the band played music from their new CD Breakfast in Balquhidder.
Willie the
Ferryman had to work hard to bring over something like 10 boatloads
of people, who
came from as far afield as Glasgow, Edinburgh… and Dhaka in Bangladesh!
Orchestra
Macaroon is a nine-piece international, multi-talented band (Scottish,
Irish and Chinese).
Around a core of piano, double bass and drums, Orchestra Macaroon
use flugal horn, Chinese
yang qin, exotic percussion, and four varieties of bagpipes, resulting
in a joyous mix of infectious
melodies and rock-steady rhythms.
Led by former
Waterboy Colin Blakey, partner Phil Bull and fellow Easdale Islander
Steve "Wee"
Brown, the band also includes Edinburgh Mela music collaborators Kim
Ho Ip from Hong Kong,
outstanding Irish percussionist Keiran Gallagher, pipers Patrick Martin
and Stephen McNally,
fiddler Steve Wickham and jazz trumpeter Lorne Cowieson. There was
even a guest appearance
by formidable clarinetist Ron Blakey on the quietly emotive Auga.
From the joyful
Arriving in Oban, the jazz-influenced Auga, the lively
oriental sounding Breakfast
in Balquhidder to the Irish jig rhythms of The Irish Sea,
the band had the audience hanging on
every fresh-sounding note.
Orchestra
Macaroon is the first phase of an exciting new development - The Shipbuilders
- a
creative umbrella for new music and art initiatives, based on Easdale
Island. They might be
based on a tiny lump of slate at the edge of the Atlantic, but the
artists' connections are
international and their outlook is global! The Shipbuilders website
will be officially launched
in September 2004.
You can listen
to and buy Breakfast in Balquhidder - online at http://www.theshipbuilders.com/new_work/new_work.php?pagepath=orch_mac_b_in_b
