Box and Fiddle
Year 41 No 04
December 2017
Price £3.00
52 Page Magazine
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Shetland Accordion & Fiddle Festival 2017
by Pia Walker
October means the annual pilgrimage to the Shetland Accordion & Fiddle Festival organised by the Shetland Accordion & Fiddle Club.
This year was the 30th Festival and it is the 40th Anniversary of the Club. I therefore decided to ask the Club Chairman, Peter Leask, a little more about himself and the Club and the Festival in general.
Peter has been Chairman since November 2000 and took over from Gussie Angus. He himself doesn’t play an instrument, although he loves to listen to the music. The only one in the near family who played was a cousin, Jack Leask, who played the accordion.
Peter got involved when son James wanted to learn the accordion at the age of 9. Jim Halcrow found him a 48 bass accordion and he went to Alice Nicolson at Brindister for lessons. In 1994, when James was 10, he started going to the Accordion & Fiddle Club to play. This was, of course, also Peter’s first time at a Club and he remembers that Gordon Shand was the guest that night. “It was my first ever time to the Club and I got hooked”. From then on it became a family affair as the whole family started going to the Club regularly so that the children, James and John, could hear all the different players. Peter believes that as well as going to lessons, it is very important for youngsters to listen to others in order to get a better understanding of the music. “Unfortunately many young people play and then go home. I suppose it depends a lot on whether the parents are into traditional music or not”.
40 years ago, the first Chairman was Frank Chadwick, who along with his wife Lillian owned the Hayfield Hotel in Lerwick. Lillian was a close relation to Ronnie Cooper, the well known musician and composer, and Hayfield became the location for many a music session with many such famous names as Ronnie, Willie Hunter, Jim Halcrow and ‘peerie Willie Johnston’ to name but a few.
The Club was started in 1978 by a group of local musicians. The idea was basically for them to meet and have a tune together. Over the years, the Club has grown, and meets in the Shetland House every 2nd Tuesday from mid-September until late March and it aims to have guests from outside Shetland visiting 4 times during this period. Later in March they have a dance in one of the halls with a guest artiste providing the music. “We have a regular pool of players who come along for a tune and to entertain the audience who can vary from 50 to 100, with more on a guest night.” The audience revenue is used to help raise funds for the annual festival. Another popular event, which can attract audiences of up to 200, is the Monday pre-Up Helly Aa night in January. As there are not enough homegrown bands to cover the 11 or so dance halls that open in Lerwick for this incredible spectacular that is Up Helly Aa, the organizers ‘import’ dance bands from the mainland and they and many other visitors try to make it along to this very special club night extravaganza. In addition, they have a fund raising concert in the Garrison Theatre in Lerwick in July, which is usually a sell-out with quite a number of tourists coming along.
I asked Peter how he saw the future of the Club and he doesn’t think it is different from anywhere else in that they are now competing with so many other events and attractions. He feels that they are probably lucky in that there is a lot of tuition happening there at the moment and this means that a number of youngsters come to the club to play. Their tutors bring them along to give them experience of playing in front of an audience and the Club hope that this will encourage some of them to become involved in future years.
He continues, “We are lucky in having a very good committee, comprising both young and not-so-young, that keeps the whole thing going.
But back to the Festival which has reached 30. How did it begin in 1987? “The Shetland Accordion & Fiddle Club Committee at the time, on the suggestion of Committee member Eileen Hunter, decided that since Shetland had a successful Folk Festival why could it not have an Accordion & Fiddle Festival? After some deliberation it was decided it was decided to give it a go for a year and see how it went and so the first one was held in October 1988. Nobody really knew whether it would work and nobody had any idea if it would attract an audience from outside Shetland. As it turned out it was a great success and it was decided to make it an annual event.” He continues: “It has really evolved slowly over a period of years. The basic format is the same as it was in the beginning with the focal points being the Festival Club in Islesburgh Community Centre, concerts and dances held throughout Shetland on Thursday and Friday evenings, the Grand Dance on Saturday evening and the final concerts on Sunday afternoon. Various things have been added, such as the Saturday morning youth concert, which features local youngsters, and more recently a youth session in the afternoon to give them the opportunity to sit in at a session rather than performing in a concert style situation.”
But surely in the span of 30 years something must have changed in the organisation of the Festival? What happens behind the scenes? The logistics and administration must be immense?
“Modern communication methods such as e-mail and social media have made administration much easier than it was. Artistically we bring in more visiting artistes from outside Shetland these days compared to the early years, usually in the region of 70+. Most musicians arrive by air and the choice of flights is greater than it once was.”
Logistically one of the main challenges over the years was getting instruments to Shetland by air. In the early days British Airways used larger aircraft and there was capacity for instruments as well as passengers. Over time, the aircraft got smaller and transport of instruments became a problem. Initially it was still possible to fly them in along with the musicians as arrivals were spread out over a couple of days on several different flights. However, when it came to the return journey on the Monday morning, when most people were leaving at the same time, we had a problem. For a few years, we had to charter a small aircraft to transport all the gear to Aberdeen. We were fortunate because the aircraft that came to Shetland with newspapers was available for the job and this helped to keep costs within reach. The only problem was that the flight had to leave at 0730 on Monday morning and it meant the Committee had to go round the session rooms taking instruments off people while the ‘final fling’ was still in full flow! Things got to the stage that this could no longer work so another method of transportation was necessary. Robert Whitehead actually came up with the idea of taking a van all the way up from Newcastle to Shetland, picking up instruments at various locations along the route and connecting with the ferry from Aberdeen and doing the return journey at the end of the Festival. This has worked exceptionally well now for many years and ensures safe transportation of a very valuable cargo! The Committee is extremely indebted to Robert for undertaking this for us each year.”
Upon asking Peter what their approximate budget was, I was told it was just over £50k! 50% of that is transport costs for visiting artistes. That is an incredible amount of money find each year – hats off to the Committee! Well, hats off to all organizing committees wherever they are, as we all do it for the love of our type of music and dance.
When you are in Shetland at the Festival, one of the things you notice is the good humour of the Committee and the way they deal with problems along the way and still manage not to look stressed. As an organiser of events myself, I am hugely impressed with this. How come they aren’t running around tearing their hair out, yelling blue murder at each other, or seen muttering in various corners? Unflappable Peter replied that they don’t really have an insurmountable problems. Each Committee member has a job to do. Of course, there are hiccups. For example when 2 keyboards ended up at one hall and none at another. Luckily, the halls were not too far apart and all was sorted out before the concerts started!
Iain MacPhail, who is a regular visitor to Shetland, mostly for Up-Helly-Aa, opened the Festival and this year’s concerts were amazing with bands, a few of whom, were in the initial line-up 30 years ago. It was a delight to hear these experienced dance bands. They had a well-rehearsed sound and a good repertoire, which made them a joy to dance to. The Grand Dance was MCed by Mrs May and Mr Johnston – oh sorry, Mr McLaren and Mr Kirkpatrick. This is well known as a dance marathon and I personally, according to my pedometer, danced more than 18,000 steps or 3km! The youth concert was a showcase of the future and it was standing room only to hear so many young people play to an amazingly high standard.
by Pia Walker
October means the annual pilgrimage to the Shetland Accordion & Fiddle Festival organised by the Shetland Accordion & Fiddle Club.
This year was the 30th Festival and it is the 40th Anniversary of the Club. I therefore decided to ask the Club Chairman, Peter Leask, a little more about himself and the Club and the Festival in general.
Peter has been Chairman since November 2000 and took over from Gussie Angus. He himself doesn’t play an instrument, although he loves to listen to the music. The only one in the near family who played was a cousin, Jack Leask, who played the accordion.
Peter got involved when son James wanted to learn the accordion at the age of 9. Jim Halcrow found him a 48 bass accordion and he went to Alice Nicolson at Brindister for lessons. In 1994, when James was 10, he started going to the Accordion & Fiddle Club to play. This was, of course, also Peter’s first time at a Club and he remembers that Gordon Shand was the guest that night. “It was my first ever time to the Club and I got hooked”. From then on it became a family affair as the whole family started going to the Club regularly so that the children, James and John, could hear all the different players. Peter believes that as well as going to lessons, it is very important for youngsters to listen to others in order to get a better understanding of the music. “Unfortunately many young people play and then go home. I suppose it depends a lot on whether the parents are into traditional music or not”.
40 years ago, the first Chairman was Frank Chadwick, who along with his wife Lillian owned the Hayfield Hotel in Lerwick. Lillian was a close relation to Ronnie Cooper, the well known musician and composer, and Hayfield became the location for many a music session with many such famous names as Ronnie, Willie Hunter, Jim Halcrow and ‘peerie Willie Johnston’ to name but a few.
The Club was started in 1978 by a group of local musicians. The idea was basically for them to meet and have a tune together. Over the years, the Club has grown, and meets in the Shetland House every 2nd Tuesday from mid-September until late March and it aims to have guests from outside Shetland visiting 4 times during this period. Later in March they have a dance in one of the halls with a guest artiste providing the music. “We have a regular pool of players who come along for a tune and to entertain the audience who can vary from 50 to 100, with more on a guest night.” The audience revenue is used to help raise funds for the annual festival. Another popular event, which can attract audiences of up to 200, is the Monday pre-Up Helly Aa night in January. As there are not enough homegrown bands to cover the 11 or so dance halls that open in Lerwick for this incredible spectacular that is Up Helly Aa, the organizers ‘import’ dance bands from the mainland and they and many other visitors try to make it along to this very special club night extravaganza. In addition, they have a fund raising concert in the Garrison Theatre in Lerwick in July, which is usually a sell-out with quite a number of tourists coming along.
I asked Peter how he saw the future of the Club and he doesn’t think it is different from anywhere else in that they are now competing with so many other events and attractions. He feels that they are probably lucky in that there is a lot of tuition happening there at the moment and this means that a number of youngsters come to the club to play. Their tutors bring them along to give them experience of playing in front of an audience and the Club hope that this will encourage some of them to become involved in future years.
He continues, “We are lucky in having a very good committee, comprising both young and not-so-young, that keeps the whole thing going.
But back to the Festival which has reached 30. How did it begin in 1987? “The Shetland Accordion & Fiddle Club Committee at the time, on the suggestion of Committee member Eileen Hunter, decided that since Shetland had a successful Folk Festival why could it not have an Accordion & Fiddle Festival? After some deliberation it was decided it was decided to give it a go for a year and see how it went and so the first one was held in October 1988. Nobody really knew whether it would work and nobody had any idea if it would attract an audience from outside Shetland. As it turned out it was a great success and it was decided to make it an annual event.” He continues: “It has really evolved slowly over a period of years. The basic format is the same as it was in the beginning with the focal points being the Festival Club in Islesburgh Community Centre, concerts and dances held throughout Shetland on Thursday and Friday evenings, the Grand Dance on Saturday evening and the final concerts on Sunday afternoon. Various things have been added, such as the Saturday morning youth concert, which features local youngsters, and more recently a youth session in the afternoon to give them the opportunity to sit in at a session rather than performing in a concert style situation.”
But surely in the span of 30 years something must have changed in the organisation of the Festival? What happens behind the scenes? The logistics and administration must be immense?
“Modern communication methods such as e-mail and social media have made administration much easier than it was. Artistically we bring in more visiting artistes from outside Shetland these days compared to the early years, usually in the region of 70+. Most musicians arrive by air and the choice of flights is greater than it once was.”
Logistically one of the main challenges over the years was getting instruments to Shetland by air. In the early days British Airways used larger aircraft and there was capacity for instruments as well as passengers. Over time, the aircraft got smaller and transport of instruments became a problem. Initially it was still possible to fly them in along with the musicians as arrivals were spread out over a couple of days on several different flights. However, when it came to the return journey on the Monday morning, when most people were leaving at the same time, we had a problem. For a few years, we had to charter a small aircraft to transport all the gear to Aberdeen. We were fortunate because the aircraft that came to Shetland with newspapers was available for the job and this helped to keep costs within reach. The only problem was that the flight had to leave at 0730 on Monday morning and it meant the Committee had to go round the session rooms taking instruments off people while the ‘final fling’ was still in full flow! Things got to the stage that this could no longer work so another method of transportation was necessary. Robert Whitehead actually came up with the idea of taking a van all the way up from Newcastle to Shetland, picking up instruments at various locations along the route and connecting with the ferry from Aberdeen and doing the return journey at the end of the Festival. This has worked exceptionally well now for many years and ensures safe transportation of a very valuable cargo! The Committee is extremely indebted to Robert for undertaking this for us each year.”
Upon asking Peter what their approximate budget was, I was told it was just over £50k! 50% of that is transport costs for visiting artistes. That is an incredible amount of money find each year – hats off to the Committee! Well, hats off to all organizing committees wherever they are, as we all do it for the love of our type of music and dance.
When you are in Shetland at the Festival, one of the things you notice is the good humour of the Committee and the way they deal with problems along the way and still manage not to look stressed. As an organiser of events myself, I am hugely impressed with this. How come they aren’t running around tearing their hair out, yelling blue murder at each other, or seen muttering in various corners? Unflappable Peter replied that they don’t really have an insurmountable problems. Each Committee member has a job to do. Of course, there are hiccups. For example when 2 keyboards ended up at one hall and none at another. Luckily, the halls were not too far apart and all was sorted out before the concerts started!
Iain MacPhail, who is a regular visitor to Shetland, mostly for Up-Helly-Aa, opened the Festival and this year’s concerts were amazing with bands, a few of whom, were in the initial line-up 30 years ago. It was a delight to hear these experienced dance bands. They had a well-rehearsed sound and a good repertoire, which made them a joy to dance to. The Grand Dance was MCed by Mrs May and Mr Johnston – oh sorry, Mr McLaren and Mr Kirkpatrick. This is well known as a dance marathon and I personally, according to my pedometer, danced more than 18,000 steps or 3km! The youth concert was a showcase of the future and it was standing room only to hear so many young people play to an amazingly high standard.