Highland Council supports Mod Lochabair 2007
The Highland Council has announced that they will be once more supporting several prestigious events at this year’s Royal National Mod which takes place in Fort William between 12-20 October including a packed special fringe programme of talks and many non-competitive events for 2007.
Following the opening night of the Royal National Mod in Fort William on Friday 12 October, Lochaber Gaelic Stalwart Chrissie MacEachen will be made a Freeman of Lochaber. The Freedom ceremony will be performed by the Provost of Lochaber, Councillor Allan Henderson at the Nevis Centre Fort William at 9pm.
Mrs MacEachen, aged 72, worked in the area as a young girl and returned in 1970 to Caol with her husband Ronald. She competed in her first Mod in Dunoon at the age of 9 in solo singing, duets and dialogue and won a Traditional Gold Medal in 1982 at the Skye Mod.
She has dedicated her later years to Gaelic and set up the Lochaber Schools Choir in 1985. Since then she has trained the choir as well as solo singers, duettists and those wishing to recite. Her dedication and hard work has all been done on a voluntary basis.
As in previous years, the Mairi Mhor Gaelic Song Fellowship is sponsoring the Learners Traditional Singing Competitions which have become increasingly popular since their inception in 2003. The Mairi Mhor Fellow Fiona Mackenzie said: “ It is part of the remit of the Fellowship to encourage learners of the Gaelic language to participate in as many singing activities as possible – singing is one of the best ways of retaining a language and of course is particularly attractive to children and young people – and Highland Council decided to take the initiative of establishing prestigious prizes for a new competition to encourage the singing of Traditional songs amongst Learners. Traditional competitions have become increasingly popular at the Mod in recent years and we are delighted that the number of competitors is steadily growing.”
The Fellowship will be presenting handcrafted silver kilt pins, designed by Gaelic speaking jeweller Roddie Johnston of Dingwall, to the winners of both adults and junior competitions together with volumes of the work of the great Skye poetess, Mairi Mhor nan Oran.
For the first time the Fellowship will also be running workshops in Cape Breton Gaelic Songs at the Mod, as part of the expanded Mod Fringe Programme. The Council has established close links with Nova Scotia, through the Memorandum of Understanding, and Gaelic has been at the heart of many initiatives over recent years.
Councillor Hamish Fraser, Chairman of the Gaelic Committee, said: “We are very keen to maintain the close links we have with the Gaels of Nova Scotia and running a workshop, in Cape Breton songs for the Fringe, seems an ideal way of encouraging Mod goers to learn about how our language travelled the ocean, adapting to new circumstances but retaining the characteristics and music which we still have today. “This year’s Mod programme is a credit to the Local Committee and I am sure that this will be one of the most memorable Mods of all times. The hard work and dedication the Committee, Local members and Officers of the Council have put into organising this outstanding festival of Gaelic language and culture, and putting together such an awesome line-up of events, is to be heartily applauded.
“The programme for the 2007 Mod has encompassed everything that is important to our language, culture and tradition and Mod 2007 will certainly leave a legacy that the Highlands and Islands will be justifiably proud of for many years to come. It is particularly important in this year, where Scotland celebrates Highland Culture, that we remember how strong a culture we have and be proud to show it off.”
The Council’s Mairi Mhor Fellow will also be conducting a choir from Mulbuie Primary School in one of the Learners Choral competitions. The school designed the Golden Broom tartan, which was adopted by Highland 2007 as the official tartan for the Year of Culture.”
Saturday 20 October will see the unveiling of one of The Highland Council’s most important Cultural Gaelic projects to date with the launch of the first ever Gaelic Christmas album. Entitled ‘Duan Nollaig’, the CD has been produced by the Mairi Mhor Fellowship and will be released on the Greentrax label.
Fiona Mackenzie said: “Since I began working in the Fellowship, I have been inundated with requests from all over the world for Gaelic Christmas songs and carols and for lyrics and translations . I was particularly struck by the lack of material for use in Gaelic medium classes in Highland schools. To date there has been no such collection and so we decided that Highland Council, in maintaining its tradition of being a ground breaker in terms of making Gaelic Song accessible, should produce such a collection. One of our main aims in this project was to attract an audience which might not normally listen to folk or Gaelic music, and so we have managed to create a strong team of musicians from all sorts of musical genres.”
On the CD are traditional Gaelic tracks arranged in a contemporary fashion, some translations of classic carols and some more classically arranged songs and songs suitable for all ages between.
The Council secured the services of Irvin Duguid as producer. Irvin is well known in musical theatre circles throughout Britain, currently acting as Musical Director for the national tour of The Producers. He has been able to bring a very different, contemporary, flavour to the album. Well known names from the traditional world can be heard playing on the album including Karen Matheson, Anna Massie, Gary Innes, Ronan Martin, Hamish Napier, James Graham, Maggie Macdonald, Simone Welsh, Katie Mackenzie as well as internationally acclaimed guitarist John Goldie, bass player Ed Mcfarlane and drummer Jim Drummond who plays with the Donnie Munro Band.