Duncan Chisholm and Ivan Drever
Item Posted: Monday 13th October , 2008
TOP DUO FOR LOCHGOIL
There will be a very special Sunday afternoon concert at Lochgoilhead Village Hall this weekend, following on the success of the Fiddle Workshop’s Sunday series concerts to encourage parents to bring their children to top quality live music events.
Duncan Chisholm and Ivan Drever, with their dynamic performance of song, fiddle, guitar, are now established as one of Scotland's top duos, playing venues and festivals across the UK, Europe and the USA.
Respected Orkney musician, Ivan Drever is well known throughout the world of traditional music for his songwriting as well as his work with Scottish band Wolfstone. Ivan has written music for US based dancer Liam Harney.
Ivan, who now lives in Spain has released numerous albums and as well
as his work with Duncan also appears in a solo capacity at festivals around the world.
Duncan Chisholm, from Inverness-shire, learned fiddle from the age of eight by the esteemed Donald Riddell, and has been at the forefront of Scottish fiddle playing for over twenty years, being hailed as one of Scotland’s finest fiddle players.
Duncan has released two solo albums, " Redpoint " and “The Door of Saints”, and regularly performs at Celtic Connections. More recently Celtic Connections asked him to perform ‘Kin’, originally the Highland Blas Festival’s first commissioned piece, a multi- media project as setting out to show that “our connection, our line to the past survives in our music, our writings, our landscape, our sense of community and our respect for family”. The event was described by critics as ‘THE show to see’
Through the medium of music, vision and language, the piece celebrates landscape, language, tradition, community and family, young and old, things which Duncan describes as being fundamental to the Highland psyche, “to our place in the world and to the inspiration of our people”.
Drever and Chisholm are probably best known for their involvement with the Scottish band, Wolfstone, but their highly successful partnership as a duo has been described as “an expression of the deep wells of the Scottish people”, and their music and song truly speaks to the heart.
Duncan Chisholm told us ‘Ivan is a remarkable musician and composer with a very free and unique style. We have been playing for so long now that I feel he complements my playing like no other musician can. Our playing days have taken us down many strange and wonderful roads from pubs to stadiums, concert halls to supermarkets, life is never dull.’
They have been touring together for sixteen years during which time they have recorded “The Lewis Blue” and more recently a live DVD and CD,“A Long December Night”. Together they wrote ‘Heart and Soul’ used in the Oscar winning film“Good Will Hunting”
This concert is part of their UK wide six week tour taking in major venues in Glasgow, Inverness and the Orkney Folk Festival, so Lochgoilhead Fiddle Workshop is particularly proud to give Cowal residents and visitors the opportunity to hear two traditional and folk music icons locally. Youngsters under 11 can attend the concert FREE. Otherwise tickets are £8.00, and can be reserved by phoning 01301 703504.