THE impressively-monikered Lisardo Lombardia first visited Scotland almost 40 years ago when he was in his 20s, and was immediately struck by the similarities between the Western Isles and both Brittany and his native Asturias in Northern Spain. Like his countryman Jose Manuel Tejedor, who was interviewed by Rob Adams in Wednesday's Herald, Lombardia was a piper, although he qualified in medicine and surgery. In recent years he can be found in Glasgow every January, one of the most regularly welcomed presences at Celtic Connections and particularly its showcase of new talent, because Lombardia has been director of Lorient Interceltique Festival (LIF) in Brittany for the past ten years, a celebration of Celtic musical culture that pre-dates Celtic Connections by many years, tracing its roots to a Fete de Cornemuses (Bagpipe Festival) in 1971. Glasgow's Piping Live!, which begins on Monday, is a mere whippersnapper by comparison, and picks up some of its international talent – like Tejedor – on the back of appearances at LIF.
Through all its ups and downs over the years, the festival in Lorient has written the manual on Celtic festivals, expanding the net from Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Cornwall to embrace the diaspora across the world, in Central and Southern as well as North America and Australia and New Zealand. The Scots, however, have been central to LIF programming since its inception, as a book published to celebrate its history makes eminently clear. Its author, Alain Cabon, is unafraid to recycle cliches about Scotland, with tall tales of plane-loads of pipers jettisoning fuel rather than beer to be able to make the right weight to achieve lift-off, and more believable stories of whisky-tasting being established as part of the programme in its earliest days, when cycling and chess featured among the disciplines alongside the music.
So the fact that this year's LIF is "L'annee de L'Ecosse" would be easy to undervalue, because every year features a healthy representation from Scotland. But Lombardia and his team are genuinely enthused by Scotland being The Country of Honour in 2017 when the ten-day event begins today. Were it not for the fact that it coincides exactly, and rather unfortunately, with the start of the Edinburgh International Festival and Fringe, The Herald would be there. On Monday the Grande Nuit honouring Scotland is headlined by Capercaillie, and that group's accordionist and keyboard player – and Lombardia's opposite number at Celtic Connections – Donald Shaw is also performing his soundtrack for Scotland's Wild Heart on tomorrow's Opening Evening: A Tribute to Scotland, music he will bring to the Queen's Hall for the Fringe on August 22 and 23. The promotional CD for Lorient this year also features Amy MacDonald, Runrig, Ho-Ro, and Elephant Sessions – far and away outstripping representation from other nations. Head teacher of harp at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Corrina Hewat tops the bill at next Saturday's Grande Nuit de Harp, and a Bagpipe Extravaganza tribute to the late Gordon Duncan on Wednesday includes his older brother Ian alongside Ross Ainslie, Ali Hutton and Fred Morrison.
With 4500 performers on 12 stages with audience capacities ranging from 200 to 4600, the population of Lorient increases ten fold to over 750,000 during the ten days, and for Lombardia the excitement lies in the huge increase in young performers he sees coming through.
"People are discovering a new aesthetic in traditional music," he says, "particularly the very young musicians aged between 22 and 25. As it is in Scotland, it is the same in Brittany with new digital technology creating experimental music and at the same time young people very open to rediscovering 18th Century music. There seem to be different musical instruments appearing at the festival each year."
Cabon's history of LIF has an early entry on "The importance of Scotland", and Scots appear throughout its 150 pages, but the event's director in 2017 could not be clearer that this year's honouring of the country is less about remembering the stalwarts of the past than the exciting new music he finds being made by the musicians of today.
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