Celtic Connections

Brave in Concert

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

Keith Bruce

five stars

WHAT looked like a fine family outing at the start of this year’s Celtic Connections was certainly that, but was in fact a much more glorious event, while never losing its down-to-earth appeal. Perhaps symptomatic of that was the presence in the audience, unacknowledged and with her own family, of Kelly Macdonald, the actor who voiced Merida, the heroine of the Disney/Pixar animation.

With a fine band of traditional musicians alongside the BBC SSO and conductor Dirk Brosse on stage, and a lot of red-haired girls in green frocks (not all of them still at school) in the audience, this was still the Patrick Doyle show, the ebullient composer introducing his own work and the assembled musicians from the stage before the screening began, and whose name was cheered by the audience every time it appeared.

The physical screen itself, annoyingly ruched at the bottom corners, was the only technical deficiency in a performance that achieved a perfect balance between the music and the visuals, so that it was always a superb musical experience – and Doyle’s score is a cracker – at the same time as being a fine film. Perhaps Brenda Chapman’s storyline doesn’t stand up to too much close scrutiny as a narrative, in its jumble of magic and legend, but the script is extraordinarily funny at times, for grown-ups as well as youngsters, and does of course boast a host of stellar Scots voices.

The musical voices live on stage never put a foot wrong in the full hour and a half, and Brosse marshalled his huge forces with expert skill. The interaction between the orchestra and the trad band on sequences like Merida’s walk to the Witch’s cottage was a delight, and pipers Lorne MacDougall and Jarlath Henderson, Fraser Fifield on whistle and Chris Stout on fiddle were every bit as distinctive as you’d expect. There was a special vocal line-up as well, with Iona Fyfe joined by Eilidh Mackenzie and her daughter Peigi Barker, who voiced and sang the young Merida in 2012.

This Celtic Connections world premiere was a meticulously created package that should surely go on to many more venues.