As the composer of tunes such as The Easy Club Reel and The Radical Road, Sutherland has accepted his work becoming part of the tradition -- sometimes even referred to as “traditional” -- and while working on film soundtracks, including Festival and the first Scottish Gaelic film, Seachd, ideas that turned out the way he wanted haven’t always suited the director and so have been ditched to be revisited another day, or not as is generally the case.
Even so, bequeathing to the nation his True North Orchestra, the 42-piece dream team with which he opens this year’s Celtic Connections in Glasgow on Thursday, seems a magnanimous gesture.
“Well, it’s my band, yes, and I formed it for a very specific project last summer,” says the musician who has worked with a spectrum of artists including Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, Emmylou Harris and the Chieftains and has produced more than 70 albums. “But I don’t feel like I should be the only person to compose for it. In fact, I know there are other people ready to create new music for an orchestra like this, which combines players from the Scottish tradition with classical and jazz musicians. So I see this as a beginning, offering a platform for new ideas that could make a difference, culturally, to Scotland.”
Sutherland’s vision is that in 10 years, an orchestra could exist in Scotland alongside the established RSNO, SCO and BBC Scottish Symphony, playing music that is essentially Scottish, composed by musicians from within the Scottish tradition. He has already suggested to the organisers of Distil, the project which encourages traditional musicians to compose more ambitious works than the tune sets that are their normal stock-in-trade, that the True North Orchestra could be the bigger voice that these composers might aspire to work with as part of their development.
“Whether the orchestra I see existing in 10 years will be called the True North Orchestra, I don’t know,” Sutherland said. “It would be nice if it was, but I honestly see this as a bums-on-seats attraction that could have a following in the same way that the RSNO and SCO have season ticket-holders and the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra has its regular audience. Even within the True North Orchestra itself there are musicians who can create bold, vibrant new Scottish music -- people like Aidan O’Rourke and Chris Stout -- and I’ve been speaking to Greg Lawson, the orchestra conductor, about the work he’s done with Martyn Bennett’s music, which is brilliant, adventurous Scottish music that could attract popularity.”
Over the next few days at least, Sutherland’s focus will be on the music he has created for the True North Orchestra. The specific project he referred to earlier that gave birth to the orchestra was Aisling’s Children, the theatrical work at the heart of The Gathering during the year of Homecoming celebrations.
Convinced that the musical element had to be as dramatic and on a similar scale to the rest of the show, but wary of the results that some previous folk-based orchestral compositions had produced, he set about finding musicians sympathetic to both styles of music, such as Stout, Lawson and Alistair Savage Aisling’s Children was rehearsed and recorded in one day because the logistics involved didn’t allow for live performance. Sutherland produced music he was satisfied with at the time, but has tweaked for the Celtic Connections concert to bring out more of the personalities of musicians such as harper Catriona McKay, piper Fraser Fifield and trumpeter Ryan Quigley. He has also written three new pieces and, with no script or timescale to follow, he was able to let his imagination run freely. One of these, Shochad Storm, has been 35 years in gestation.
“It’s an expression I first came across back home in Caithness when I was 14 and even then I thought it would make a fantastic piece of music, but somehow the right moment never arrived until now,” Sutherland said. “Basically, it relates to the period in early spring when the lapwings -- the shochads, as they’re known up there -- are incubating their eggs and the winds are blasting across the flat, bleak landscape.
“It’s interesting because you need to be very deliberate in what you write to be able to describe something like that and I’ve probably acquired that through writing film music. Normally, composing for me is a bit like doodling, allowing yourself to dream. I’m completely untrained -- I’ve never had a lesson in composition or even on an instrument, so it’s daunting, in a way, writing for an orchestra. But when you hear the sound, more or less, that was in your head coming back at you, it’s incredibly rewarding.”
Jim Sutherland’s True North Orchestra plays the Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, on Thursday and Perth Concert Hall on Saturday.
Only problem is choosing who to see...
Celtic Connections gets more and more like the real-life equivalent of internet shopping for music. It’s all here and whittling down the highlights into a package just north of a nutshell is quite a challenge. But here goes.
Sticking out like the thumb he uses to turn his rib cage into a bass drum is the one-man orchestra himself, Bobby McFerrin, pictured, who’ll be conjuring up his very own, spontaneous vocal magic next Monday, January 18.
Half a world away from McFerrin’s Californian roots, The Legendary Gypsy Queens and Kings promise a veritable Balkanalia, full of singing, ecstatic dance music and brass fantasias on Thursday 21, and Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek, whose career rebooted with the help of Brazilian bassist Yuri Daniel, presents his cool, keening melodic improvisations on Thursday 28.
Fiddlers? The brochure’s hoachin’ with them, not least the wonderful Darol Anger, who is in the Fiddle Summit on Friday 22 and leads the Republic of Strings on Saturday 23, and Scotland’s own Session A9, whose virtuosity will rock the Old Fruitmarket on Friday 29. Sam Baker’s evocative poetry and mad hatter asides make the Texas Songwriters in the Round a mighty prospect on Thursday 21, and there’s an intriguing meeting of concertina mastery, classical settings and multi-cultural inquiry with Niall Vallely on Saturday 16.
If it’s a hoolie you’re after, Skippinish provide the soundtrack, West Highland-style, on Sunday 24. The Chair show how Orcadians mix great musicianship with dance-floor-filling tactics on Saturday 30 and there’s a slightly more sedate, if not sober, Skye Night with Gaelic singer Arthur Cormack and a line-up including Blair Douglas on Saturday 16. Which leaves two heroes making welcome returns: Martin Hayes, whose fiddle playing may well have something to do with him “rosining” his bow with honey (Monday 25) and Andy M Stewart, one of the great storytelling singers whose comic timing is only exceeded by his dramatic turn of phrase and authoritative delivery.
