Archives for October 2012

Your weekly list of ceilidhs, traditional music events and classes in Scotland compiled for you by Dawn Baxter and the Take the Floor team.

FRIDAY 12th October

ACCORDION AND FIDDLE CLUB

Coldingham - Crosslaw Caravan Park - Scott Band - 7.30pm

CONCERT

Midlem - Midlem Village Hall - The Proclaimers + Blueflint (support)

RSCDS

Kinross - Weekend School - Hamilton and Clydesdale Branch

SATURDAY 13th October

CLASS

Dundee - Wighton Centre, Dundee Central Library - Fiddle Class (Improvers - 11am)

Dundee - Wighton Centre, Dundee Central Library - Fiddle Class (Beginners - 12 noon)

Dundee - Wighton Centre, Dundee Central Library - Whistle Class (Beginners - 12.30pm)

Dundee - Wigton Centre, Dundee Central Library - Medieval Harp with Simon Chadwick - 2pm

FIDDLER'S RALLY

Dunoon - Queen's Hall - With Alasdair Whyte - 7.30pm

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Years spent in an isolated existence on an island off Mallaig gave artist, Rob Fairley, the solitude and space to pursue his twin passions for art and climbing. This week he joins me in the first hour of Sunday Morning, with me, Cathy Macdonald to talk about how this lifestyle informs his spirituality.

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Roddy Hart writes about this week's show:

Art Garfunkel - that lanky, tightly curled, nostril flaring champion of a man - just so happens to be the punchline to my favourite story of all time. Alas, dear reader, it's not suitable for recounting in this keenly regulated blog (so they tell me), but suffice to say if you ever happen to bump into Another Country's Ricky Ross then don't let him leave your sight until he tells it to you. And so it's for this very reason (the name now triggering some rather bizarre imagery) that I can often forget just how phenomenal a singer Artie actually is. It only takes a few seconds of listening to Simon and Garfunkel live in the mid 60s - our Live On Arrival choice this week - to be reminded just how spine tingling that tenor and falsetto can be. There is something otherworldly about the man and his talent, as if beamed in from another planet specifically to align with one of the world's most gifted songwriters and go on to define a new generation of music fans. And if the extra-terrestrial were at play, it would certainly explain the nostrils.

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Here is the latest recipe from The Kitchen Café. To be downloaded, kept, cooked and enjoyed.

John Quigley's Finnan Haddie Risotto

The Kitchen Café is on BBC Radio Scotland, every Wednesday 1315-1400

Here's the latest newsletter from our colleagues in radio drama, detailing the dramas and readings coming soon on the BBC radio network including The Strange Case of Dr Hyde which broadcasts on BBC Radio Scotland later this month.

I first met my first hour guest, writer and Port of Leith, sea chaplain, Tim Bell - while working on a BBC Radio Scotland programme some years ago, so it was a pleasure to welcome him into the studio to talk about his career and about some of the values and ideas which have shaped his work. He describes himself as 'a landlubberly native of Northumberland' but has lived in Leith for 30 years with his family and is an elder in the Church of Scotland. And as you might expect the Northumbrian pipes feature in his musical choices.

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Your weekly list of ceilidhs, traditional music events and classes in Scotland compiled for you by Dawn Baxter and the Take the Floor team. This week's show features music from Lynne Chrisite and her Scottish Dance Band. Don't miss it.

FRIDAY 5th October

CEILIDH

Glasgow - Clarkston Hall - David Oswald and his band

CONCERT

Edinburgh - Queen's Hall - Duncan Chisholm

Peebles - Eastgate Arts Centre - The Shee

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Roddy Hart writes about this week's show:

One of the undoubted privileges of doing this show (and there are many) is being able to raid the BBC music archives for inspiration when putting a playlist together. Back in the days when I used to dep for the inimitable Iain Anderson (which gave me a rather unexpected start in the radio game), I would turn up at the production offices armed with numerous polybags full of CDs grabbed from my own modest collection. If the faces of my producers displayed the perfect mix of compassion and consternation at my brazen attempts to hijack their carefully considered shows, then imagine how they felt when I began my own Thursday night slot and duly discovered the BBC's BVJ (Big Virtual Jukebox). Archiving just about every record you can possibly think of (within reason), it is the ultimate plaything for us radio geeks: accessible, cross-referencing, fast and seemingly bottomless. If God has his own jukebox, then this would surely be it.

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Here is the latest recipe from The Kitchen Café. To be downloaded, kept, cooked and enjoyed.

Neil Forbes' Coq au Vin

The Kitchen Café is on BBC Radio Scotland, every Wednesday 1315-1400