Sgoil Chiùil na Gàidhealtachd

Hooked!

Own label

The Traditional Music Centre of Excellence at Plockton High School’s latest annual showcase CDs is testament to how well the students, ranging from secondary years 3 to 6, learn from both resident tutors and passing musicians who call in to give workshops.

There’s a guitar trio treatment of the wonderful old fiddle tune Roslin Castle that not only serves as a fine tribute to the school’s long serving guitar tutor, Jack Evans, it also carries the spirit of Evans’ old folk-swing band, the legendary Easy Club. Later, The Long Waistcoat has much of the quality that fiddle and guitar duo Stewart Hardy & Frank McLaughlin might have passed on in their workshop, although the latter’s son, Lewis plays on this track and he might well have a more direct connection.

MORE MUSIC: Square One featuring Andy Middleton, Double Bind

All sixteen students on the course step up to the mic and while there are a couple of tracks that feature all of them together, it’s the duos and trios that best illustrate the good work that’s going on round the year, with Scots and Gaelic songs and uptempo tunes and slow airs alike being imaginatively arranged and delivered with skill and heart.

Rob Adams