Would you believe that?
Last night I went to take photos at the Usher Hall at the Concert for Trees. It was a big fundraising event, with a phenomenal number of people involved, including a large 130-strong community choir, which had been brought together specially for the performance.
I was in the hall during the afternoon, taking photos of various singers, dancers and musicians as they did their final preparations for the concert. The choir were onstage for a while, checking their seating arrangements, and having a final run through a couple of their songs. during a brief lull, a friend who was singing in the choir sat down at the grand piano onstage and started playing it. It was a real surprise to a lot of folk who didn’t know she played. And she played beautifully!
Steinway piano keyboard
Thanks to Isobel for suggesting this gallery title!
Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas
The California-based Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser was involved in the very first Scots Fiddle festival in 1996, and has been a great supporter of the event over its history. He returned to play at the Saturday evening concert this year, along with cellist Natalie Haas.
Alasdair Fraser at the Scots Fiddle Festival
Natalie Haas, cellist
Alasdair and Natalie
Natalie
Find out about commissioning Ros to take promotional photos
Ali White, fiddler with the Battlefield Band
Feis Rois
I was at Feis Rois over the weekend – there were some cracking concerts. Saturday night’s gig started off with two fiddlers, Ali White and Mike Vass, playing together. Superb!
Here’s a photo of Alasdair in full flow:
Face to face
I had a fairly frenetic musical evening tonight – kicking off with our student concert, which is always an amazing evening. With over 20 classes involved in performing, there’s a lot of organising goes on behind the scenes, so it’s been a busy week.This year, I had the added bonus of a second concert with the choir, planned for the same night – oh, and they asked if the band would play too. So the dilemma was how to fit all that in to one evening without imploding before bedtime.
I appear to have avoided that…
None of it would have been possible without the friends who helped out in so many different ways – thanks to all of you!
One of the things I love about the student concert is the cacophony in the ‘back room’ where people are tuning up, and having a last minute panic run through their performance set. It’s completely mad, and somehow everyone seems to be utterly good natured throughout the chaos. The power of music.
I usually have my camera with me at the student concert…tonight I took it into the back room, just as the absolute beginners fiddle class were having their fiddles tuned before they went on stage. They’d decided on a hat-wearing theme for the evening. Here’s Isla, cheerfully tuning fiddle number 14:
