New BBC Alba show Sruth to feature top young traditional musicians from Scotland and Ireland alongside A-listers in the genre
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SOME of the finest young traditional musicians from the Highlands and Ireland get the chance to perform with the genre’s A-list stars in a new TV series.
BBC Alba began screening the four-part show Sruth last week, and all episodes will be available to watch on the BBC iPlayer after broadcast.
The show, which is a joint Scottish and Irish production, aims to celebrate traditional music in the here and now, it’s a debt to the past masters, known and unknown, and to the future.
It sees eight of the finest young musicians from Ireland and Scotland perform alongside some of traditional music’s more established A-listers – such as Julie Fowlis, Bríd Harper, Phil Cunningham, Niall Vallely, Duncan Chisholm, Ríoghnach Connolly, Griogair Labhruidh & Tiarnán Ó Duinnchinn.
Legendary singer Maighread Ní Dhomhnaill, of the iconic band Skara Brae, narrates.
Filmed in Belfast, Glasgow, throughout Ulster and the Scottish Highlands and Islands, the production of the series was of course a daunting prospect under Coronavirus restrictions but while the young musicians and their mentors might have been socially distanced, the music created an intimate bridge between them.
Executive Producer, Dónal O’Connor of Táin Media, said: “This music can put us in touch with ourselves in ways that no other art form can do. It can embrace the pulse of our ancestral memory, allowing us to redefine our dreams of what it is to be Irish or Scottish.”
He added: “The series features performances which will take your breath away. Traditional music is quintessentially the art of solo performance and these four one hour programmes give us the chance to let the music breath. We get to experience the magic that great solos can produce, they can grace a moment of joy or they can amplify a moment of sorrow.”
Each episode in the series is broadcast on BBC Alba on Thursdays at 9pm.
Each programme will feature the following musicians and a host of musical friends, with Méabh Smyth (fiddle) and Innes White (guitar) in episode one, Megan Nic Fhionnghaile (fiddle) and Pàdruig Morrison (accordion) performing on the second installment, Niall Hanna (singer) and Brìghde Chaimbeul (pipes) in week three, and Lauren O’Neill (harp) and Ali Levack (pipes and whistles) appearing in the final show.
