NORTHUMBRIAN MUSIC
NIGHTS
What we said about
The Kathryn Tickell
Band
Tickell's new territories for the senses
There's no place like home, but when home is the Borderlands of Northumberland, a special piquant flavour is added to the return of an internationally acclaimed musician when she obviously delights in playing to a 'home' audience.
Kathryn Tickell played Allendale last week, in the grand finale concert of the Northumberland Traditional Music Festival, and it was a brilliantly realised professional finish to a session of events that is being increasingly commented on as a flagship of the best of Northumberland's own unique music. What better way to finish than with a swirl and a flourish of the county's own pipes?
Reminding us that she'd spent an enjoyable day with the up-and-coming ceilidh band at Allendale Middle School this past summer, and peppering the programme with a series of fascinating vignettes on musical life in Northumberland (careering from her father's Border Ballads sung at every available castle and battlefield opportunity, to reminiscences of Peter, the busking piper up the Wentworth path, to a gracious acknowledgement of Allendale's own Terry Conway's contribution to 'The Northumberland Collection'), Kathryn won over the hearts of all in the capacity hall.
It would be facile, if entirely accurate, merely to rhapsodise over the concert, noting the superb ellisions between tunes in each set, or the brilliant contrasts between fiddles harmonious and melodic as against the pipes and melodeon, with exquisite guitar and bass accompaniment. And certainly Gregor Borland on fiddle, viola and bass, with Julian Sutton on the melodeon and Kit Haigh on six string guitar provided a dynamic sense of a taut, tight ensemble.
But the point for me, trying to listen carefully with an ear reasonably sensitised to the traditional idiom, was most dramatically presented in Kathryn's own suite, 'Stories from the Debateable Lands', commissioned specially by the Brampton Live Festival. This was music based on a tradition long-growing out of the misty fells, but moving along into experimental and exciting new spheres of delight.
Of course, there were the exciting reels, the old and the new, from 'The Magpies' , the never-ending circuitous passages of 'Rothbury Road', the rhythmic numbers of Woody Taylor, the melancholy nostalgia and homecoming of 'The Road to the North', to say nothing of the 'Kilfenora Jig' and 'My laddie sits ower late up' and the great crowd pleaser of the Morpeth Rant set. We expected no less, and the music could be as hot as Alistair Anderson's 'Hot Rivets' or as sweetly aching as 'Our Kate' and 'The Welcome Home'.
But there was no doubt, after this concert, and on further reflection with 'The Debateable Lands' CD resounding in my ears, that Kathryn Tickell is moving her music along to new and previously unexplored territories that enchant the senses and thrill the audience fortunate to be part of the experience. The Northumbrian tradition as a contributor to the language of the world's music. Oh aye, and it is so.
