‘Something for everyone’ as 37th Shetland Accordion and Fiddle Festival kicks off
FIDDLE fanatics and accordion aficionados revelled in the return of the annual Shetland Accordion and Fiddle festival in a packed room 16 at Islesburgh on Thursday.
The 37th iteration of the yearly event promises “something for everyone”, committee chairman Peter Leask ensured the crowd, with gigs stretching throughout the isles over the next four days.
Vidlin, Brae, Cunningsburgh, Walls, Scalloway and Burra will all host concerts across the next two nights, before attention turns to the festival’s main event – the grand dance in Clickimin Leisure Centre on Saturday night.
The festival hub at Islesburgh will once again bring everything together and a buzz was already gathering as the opening ceremony kicked off at 1pm this afternoon.
That may have been helped by the onsite bar, which was already doing brisk business as festival newcomers and stalwarts filed into room 16 to hear the opening remarks.
Leask revealed that though the Shetland heritage fiddlers had been forced to pull out of tonight’s Vidlin concert, they would be more than ably replaced by fiddler and 2025 festival opener Maggie Adamson – which delighted the crowd in Islesburgh.
He gave a “big thanks to all the musicians” playing across the weekend – adding that they “couldn’t do it without your help”.
And Leask reserved a special thanks to Jim Watson, who attended the first 33 consecutive festivals with his wife Irene.
The festival chairman told the room that Jim had made a “substantial” and “very generous” donation to the festival in memory of Irene this year.
Festival stalwart Roddy Matthews was on hand to open the festival, and he spoke effusively about the warmth of the people in Shetland and the quality of their music.
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He touched on themes of tradition, memories and friendship, and said everyone in attendance would have one enduring memory from the festival at its close.
And he joked that Shetlanders were so friendly that they required surgery to have them removed.
Matthews mentioned the prevalence of music created by artificial intelligence (AI), and said that AI could not replicate music made in Shetland because of its uniqueness.
After declaring the 37th accordion and festival officially open, the room was treated to a performance from the visiting Neil Kirkpatrick Trio.
Attention turns later to concerts in the Vidlin and Bridge End halls, along with concert/dances at the festival hub and in the Cunningsburgh hall.
Saturday sees the return of the much-anticipated youth concert, featuring a number of young Shetland musicians, at the festival hub at 10.30am, while the rest of the day will have plenty of sessions and dancing on.
Sunday, the final day of the festival, is a more relaxed affair – with two afternoon concerts in the hub and in the Royal British Legion in Lerwick.
These two concerts will take place simultaneously and will feature some of the most popular performers from the festival who will move between the venues.
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