‘Absolute magic’: Amy Laurenson’s septet impresses at Mareel
NOT KNOWING my allegro from my adagio or my jigs from my reels, I am certainly not qualified to write a review of the immaculate concert performed by Glasgow-based Shetland pianist Amy Laurenson, writes Pete Bevington.
She brought three members of her south-based septet to Lerwick’s Mareel on Saturday night for the first performance in the isles of her recently commissioned work for Celtic Connections New Voices.
Amy is one of the many rising stars in Scotland’s traditional music world who are stretching the boundaries of the “genre”, in her case into the realms of the classical with inflections of jazz thrown in.
Unbelievably – and I think I heard this right – this 50-minute long series of instrumental pieces was her first stab at composition having previously focused solely on re-arranging traditional tunes into orchestral works, of which she included a few in Saturday’s show.
In fact I had the sense I was watching a modern day chamber orchestra, with Amy’s intricate piano playing accompanied by a wealth of talent including her regular musical partner, Shetland’s saxophone maestro Norman Willmore, stunning Scottish-based cellist Su-a Lee from Seoul in South Korea, top notch percussionist Gregor Black from Glasgow and the hugely talented Matthew Tighe from London on fiddle.
Requiring extra hands to create the full orchestration, Amy recruited the amazing Maggie Adamson and “Sauerkraut” Seth Travins to complete the string section of fiddle and double bass respectively, who she said, once again unbelievably, had only enjoyed a single rehearsal the day before Saturday’s show.
You would never have known it. Amy’s compositions required perfect timing as they would suddenly shift unexpectedly, her fingers dancing miraculously across the keyboard with extraordinary pace and precision while her fellow musicians navigated all the sudden twists and turns she planted in her tunes. The effect was dramatic, to say the least.
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The concert took us on a journey through a soundscape conjured up in Amy’s musical imagination by the homeland she clearly loves so much, from walking the frightening cliffs of Foula to swimming in Shetland’s freezing seas (an experience she seemingly persuaded her visiting guests to join her in at Bain’s Beach that morning). Norman’s horn would take off like a flight of seabirds in the sun, Matthew’s fiddle would suddenly hold us in a jazzy huddle while Su-a Lee’s swaying cello held the moder dy.
To the side of the stage Seth stood aloft beside his double bass, eyes focused firmly on the sheets of music before him, while Maggie sat impeccably composed as if she had been playing these tunes all her life.
Behind them all was the wonderful Gregor Black who managed to convey the powerful emotion of Amy’s compositions as he weaved his way around his cymbals, drums and bodhran, a trance-like bliss on his face most of the time.
And the emotion the concert conjured up for the packed venue, more than anything else, was one of sheer joy. You could hear it in the music, you could feel it from the musicians whose faces would light up when they could momentarily relax the laser focus the part they were playing required of them. Absolute magic.
It never ceases to amaze me how Shetland manages to keep producing generation after generation of musical talent who manage to keep expanding the horizons of the islands’ incredibly rich musical heritage taking it into ever more new and unexpected realms. Amy Laurenson is clearly at the forefront of the latest cadre of Shetland musicians and is destined for a glittering career…though there is one area where she still has a lot of work to do: dreaming up titles for those magnificent tunes of hers. Go Amy go!
And finally a word about support act the Forget Me Notes, a young fiddle duo with piano accompaniment, who demonstrated how secure that musical heritage remains with their lively, energetic set of reels, slow airs and goodness knows what else.
As I said at the beginning, I’m just not qualified to write about this stuff. All I can say is that it was a great night out, everyone enjoyed it, both young and old, and I left Mareel once again feeling supremely grateful for being part of this wonderful place. Thank you Neil and Kelly from Ragged Wood Promotions, and Shetland Arts, for making this happen. More please.
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