Celtic Connections
Armagh Pipers Night
Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow
Rob Adams
FOUR STARS
The Old Fruitmarket stage at the finale was as crowded as I’ve ever seen it, with some two dozen musicians, many well-established, others just beginning to make their reputations, and seated on the riser at the back, two special ones, Brian and Eithne Vallely, without whom none of us would have been there.
Twenty-four is a tiny fraction of the musicians who have passed through the Vallelys’ Armagh Pipers Club – we saw a good number of them in back-projected photos – since they started giving music tuition on Monday nights in 1966. Prominent among these graduates are their sons, concertinist Niall, piper Cillian and keyboardist Caoimhin, whose bands, Buille and Lúnasa, along with Flook, whose whistle master Brian Finnegan is another club beneficiary, played sets of their own and expanded to include further club associates.
The spirit in the room was almost palpable and as all three bands and myriad assemblies presented high class jigs, reels and airs we were reminded of the source of this musicality at regular intervals with the images onscreen. Guitarist Ed Boyd, although not an Armagh boy, earned a special commendation as an ever-present onstage, his rhythmical momentum variously powering Buille’s deep in the tradition-meets-spontaneous creativity style, enhancing piper Jarlath Henderson’s sweet singing of The Road to Clady, and forming a robust, imaginative engine room with Trevor Hutchinson’s double bass in the twisting, turning, subtly feinting powerhouse that is Lúnasa.
If having the full company play festival director Donald Shaw’s MacLeod’s Farewell was a nice touch, then inviting Brian (pipes) and Eithne (fiddle) Vallely up for a richly orchestra Abbey Reel and Rakish Paddy sealed a superbly memorable night.
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