Salut! Live

Andrew Curry writes: We had the Scots fiddler Duncan Chisholm as our Artist of the Week over at Salut! Live’s Facebook group recently, and the reason was by way of noting his 55th birthday—which happens to be today.

(Duncan Chisholm. Photo: folkimages.com (c) Roger Liptrot)

Chisholm is undoubtedly, the finest Scots fiddle player of his generation, and he has been influential both as a solo artist and through his involvement in groups such as Wolfstone and Runrig, and more recently as Julie Fowlis’s musical director. He played at the first Celtic Connections festival with Wolfstone, and has performed at every one since then.

I first became aware of him through a brief and enthusiastic review of his live record, Live at Celtic Connections, by the Guardian’s long-standing folk critic Robin Denselow. It’s a decade old now, but it is still a good introduction to his work, featuring songs from The Strathglass Trilogy, his three early solo records which each celebrate places in the Scottish Highlands. It’s still a favourite at home.

It took me a while to manage to see him live. I finally managed that at Hebcelt in 2019, where he was playing in the quiet of the An Llantair Arts Centre in Stornaway rather than the noise of the grounds of Lews Castle. Here’s some of what I wrote about that gig on a different blog:

“He writes his own material in the Scots fiddle tradition and plays with a a band that includes a pianist/keyboards player, a guitarist, and a pipes and whistle player. The last two were a lot younger than he was, which I always take as a good sign, since it suggests he’s still listening.”

Since then I have managed to see him a couple more times, once by accident. The first—definitely not by accident—was at Celtic Connections in 2023, where he was performing his most recent evocation of the Scottish land and landscape, Black Cuillins, which celebrates Skye. I reviewed that concert on the Salut Live blog.

“What’s distinctive about [his music] is that he has taken the airs, jigs, and reels that he grew up with, and which make up so much of Scottish traditional music, and has transformed them into a modern sound that works for a 21st century audience, without losing the thread to the music’s traditional roots.

“Black Cuillin, which Chisholm describes as his “most ambitious” work yet, does this through a combination of a big cinematic sound, electric reinforcement on some tracks, and some subtle electronic effects.”

Since then I also saw him playing with Cara Dillon—also reviewed on Salut Live—which took me by surprise, since I hadn’t realised that he’d played on her record, let alone had travelled south to be in her band for the King’s Place concert in London.

One of the things I like about Chisholm is the evident pleasure he gets from the company of musicians. He clearly sees performing as a collective act.

This makes sense given that he grew up in Scots traditional music, which emphasises the group much more than the individual.

It’s always good to see a musician with so much talent make so much of it. His evocations of Scotland in his seven solo records, so far, are a tremendous hymn to the power of the fiddle to raise our spirits and to lift our mood, to the places that he has written about, and to the enduring ability of traditional music to move with the times.

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