Music
Here’s music from Ireland in a story from Norse times with the timing of the tide. Here’s music from Orkney with Kirkwall City Pipe Band, joined on Broad Street by the Willowburn Valley Stompers and the visiting group Kakatsitsi. And here too from Orkney are Three in a Bar.
We go into St Magnus Cathedral to hear the organ. And we go to rackwick in Hoy to hear the voices of George Mackay Brown and Peter Maxwell Davies in the 1982 BBC Radio Scotland programme The Valley by the Sea.
We go to the house in Galloway of the physicist James Clark Maxwell to walk on his favourite paths and hear music specially composed for him, and to hear about the dance Maxwell’s Waves.
We have songs from Slovenia and songs from Scotland.
Like the Corn Cut Down by the River
A 19th-century calculation of the tides in the area confirmed the chroniclers’ details. The story of the battle and the tide was depicted on 9 September 2018 in the 28th Orkney International Science Festival in Like the Corn Cut Down by the River, with Orkney Children’s Theatre Club, readers Dave Grieve and Ragnhild Ljosland, and singer Lorcán Mac Mathúna accompanied by Daire Bracken (fiddle) and Eamonn Galldubh (pipes and flute).
The Valley by the Sea
How the sounds and the light and the flow of time in the Orkney valley of Rackwick influenced the music of Peter Maxwell Davies. A BBC Scotland radio programme from 1982 with the poet George Mackay Brown tells the story of the composer and the valley in the island of Hoy with its breaking seas and scattered croft houses, with a visual sequence of images added today.
A9 to Wick
“Golspie, Brora, the northern aurora, Helmsdale, Berriedale, Dunbeath and Lybster…” Andy Munro (aka Mr Boom, the one-man band from the Moon) points his spaceship northwards in the direction of Wick, on a mission to Orkney – his annual visit to the Orkney International Science Festival.
Maxwell’s Light
Images from two of the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell's favourite walks, near Parton in Galloway, where the Lair Burn and the River Urr run close to his house of Glenlair. Jennifer Austin's composition, Maxwell's Light, accompanies Selena S. Kuzman's film.
Hope’s Beautiful Daughters
A new CD bringing together Scottish and Slovenian musicians and storytellers is to be launched in Orkney on 3 September.
Brian Boru’s March
The story of the battle is told in our online magazine Frontiers, and how the Norse king of Dublin and the Irish king of Leinster rose against King Brian and brought in the Orkney earl to assist them.
Broad Street Saturday
Broad Street in Kirkwall is the setting for some of the Saturday afternoon events in the annual Orkney International Science Festival. There is the Vintage Rally organised by Orkney Vintage Club, with music by the local jazz band, the Willowburn Valley Stompers, and visiting groups like Kakatsitsi, the drummers from Jamestown in Ghana. In the early evening, Kirkwall City Pipe Band hold their final parade of the summer season.
Back for the Saturday afternoon Singalong!
We know little about Mr Boom’s origins other than he seems to have emerged one day from a crater on the Moon, but with Andy we know more, in particular that he comes from Wick, and that he is an accomplished musician, playing with various bands over the years.
But Oh! the Stars in all their Beauty
The Sunday evening concert featuring the Mayfield Singers and organist George McPhee with guests is always a highlight, and last year it included the premiere of a new piece of music and the first performance in Orkney of a new work by an Orkney composer.
Kirkwall City Pipe Band
Kirkwall City Pipe Band hold their final parade of the season on Broad Street on the Saturday evening of the Festival, which this year will be 8 September.
Three in a Bar
Three in a Bar came together to play at Festival events and in addition provide music at special events such as the North Ronaldsay Harvest Home and Burns Supper.
New dance honours great Scot
Dancers in Dufftown in Moray trying out for the first time a new dance commemorating the life and works of the great Scottish physicist, James Clerk Maxwell. Maxwell's Waves was commissioned by Orkney International Orkney Science Festival, and danced in the Island Ceilidh in the September 2012 Festival. It was then more widely launched at a ceilidh in Maxwell's home territory of Dumfries and Galloway in April 2013.
The Grand Tour 2012
This is a brief visit to four famous historical pipe organs in Germany, the Czech Republic and The Netherlands. High quality sampled version of these organs were played by Professor George Mcphee using the Hauptwerk Virtual Pipe Organ system.
Maxwell’s Waves and Freeland’s tunes
The music for the new dance Maxwell’s Waves was composed by one of the great figures in Scottish traditional music, Freeland Barbour. The dance made its first public appearance at the Island Ceilidh in the 2012 Festival, with guidance from Jessie Stuart who created it, and then had its Scottish launch in Maxwell’s home territory at a ceilidh in the Dumfries and Galloway Science Festival in April 2013.
