We would like to thank Vaughan Williams Foundation for their support of our Dol Fodha Na Grèine project which will receive it’s first performance on Sunday 26th January at Celtic Connections festival.
In difficult times for the arts we are really appreciative of the foundation’s support of our new piece of music. We would love to see you at the concert on the 26th!
I’m excited to introduce “Dol fodha na grèine” (Gaelic for Sunset), a musical suite blending centuries-old Scottish tunes with new compositions. This project is created as a companion piece to Aly Bain’s groundbreaking “Follow the Moonstone,” celebrating its 30th anniversary. It’s a crowdfunder to raise £5000 to help with rehearsal costs to pay the musicians.
https://igg.me/at/dol-fodha-na-greine
Our new work brings together renowned musicians Dave Milligan (piano) and Alana MacInnes (bagpipes, whistle), along with a string quintet. Your support will directly fund the crucial rehearsals for our premiere performance at the Celtic Connections festival in January 2025. By contributing, you’ll help bring this unique celebration of Scottish culture to life, ensuring our musicians are fully prepared to showcase our rich musical heritage on an international stage, while honoring a pivotal work in Scottish traditional music.
What We Need & What You Get:
We’re aiming to raise £5,000 to support the final stages of our project. Here’s how your contribution will be used:
– £3,500 for musician fees during our rehearsal period in January
– £1,000 for venue rental and equipment
– £500 for promotional materials and documentation
Perks:
£10: Digital download of a single track from the rehearsal
£25: Early access to a rehearsal video clip + Your name listed as a supporter on our website
£50: All £25 perks + Digital sheet music + Digital booklet about the project’s music
£75: All £50 perks + A real postcard from South Uist, signed by Simon
£100: All £75 perks + Behind-the-scenes digital photo album + Personalized thank you email
£250: All £100 perks + Access to exclusive online Q&A + Digital certificate of appreciation
£500: All £250 perks + Signed digital poster + Virtual meet-and-greet with musicians
The Impact:
Your support will:
1. Create new Scottish music that respects tradition while being innovative
2. Give work to skilled Scottish musicians
3. Make a lasting piece of Scottish cultural heritage
I’ve just released a new album with pianist Dave Milligan. The second one in two years! Recorded in 2020 at Celtic Connections festival, just before lockdown was a thing and we all became distracted. It took til 2024 for the album to arrive. Both Dave and me are massive Moscow Art Trio fans and one of our favourite albums is their Hamburg Concert. We decided to name the album Glasgow Concert in homage to them.
The thing I like about this album is it features live versions of the tracks that were on our first two albums – The Big Day In and Third Fight Home. Typically when we record a new album the tracks haven’t been performed before and they start to change as soon as we play them live! These are these live versions plus 2 tracks which haven’t featured on any other albums!
The album has 9 tracks and last approx 35 minutes. You can read about the tracks here. (download). You can listen to the album on the link above and here.
Simon Thoumire and Dave Milligan have each performed at Ardkinglas before in different duos but this is a welcome chance to hear them together. They have an intuitive musical understanding of each other’s great talents, having recorded three albums together. Since winning the BBC Radio 2 Young Tradition award in 1989 Simon Thoumire has built a unique place for the English concertina in the world of Scottish
traditional music and beyond. His music has encompassed folk, jazz, improvisation and his own compositions, and he is also a tireless advocate for traditional music with the organisation Hands Up For Trad and the Scots Trad Music Awards. See www.simonthoumire.com
Dave Milligan is a musician of remarkable versatility. As well as his own bands and projects he has worked with a wide array of musicians including Art Farmer, Larry Carlton, Trilok Gurtu, Mark Knopfler and the McCrary Sisters to name just a few. See www.davemilligan.co.uk
Places (£15.00, students £7.50) must be booked in advance from Ardkinglas Estate Office
Tel. 01499 600261 email: info@ardkinglas.com
Please give a contact phone no. when booking.
If you are not already on our mailing list, or have friends who would like to join, please
send details to the Estate Office. If you wish to be removed from the list please inform us.
Myself and Dave Milligan have got a couple of gigs coming up! We are performing at
Ardkinglas House – Saturday 20th April
The Square, Cairndow
PA26 8BH
Argyll
01499 600261
Also at Edinburgh Tradfest Festival on Saturday 11th May at 6:30pm
Traverse Theatre
10 Cambridge Street
EH1 2ED
Edinburgh, UK
I thought you would like to see this photo of my concertina after Steve Dickinson, concertina repairer took it away from West Country Concertina Players in Somerset and did some work on it.
I’ve never given my concertina away before so it was slightly daunting however when I showed it to Steve he said that he could take it away for a week and fix a few things on it. It was quite a sight! The thumb straps were wrecked as I hadn’t got round to replacing them – just added more tape, I had a red hanky stopping one of the sides from clicking as they rubbed together, my top Bb was missing completely and the button levels were all higgledy piggledy (is that how you spell that phrase?). It still sounded beautiful of course!
As you’ll see from the photo it is now looking beautiful. I’ve got a bit of practice to be doing to soften the thumb straps and get used the instrument in its new state. But that’s an exciting prospect in itself. I’ll have to get on to writing the music for my new piece a’ dol fodha na grèine and having the concertina all fixed up will make a difference.
Found this interesting post on the history of Wheatstone Concertinas!
I’m always looking for new subscribers to my Patreon! Feel free to join!
I’m very happy to tell you that me and Dave Milligan will be playing at Celtic Connections festival on the 2nd February 2024 in the City Halls, Recital Rooms. It would be great to see you and we will be playing a mixture of new and classic material from our new album Portraits and older tunes. You can find out more here
https://www.celticconnections.com/event/1/simon-thoumire-dave-milligan
Hi everyone! Myself and Dave are performing at Stirling Tolbooth this Saturday 7th October 7:30pm and we would love to see you! We will be performing music from the new album Portraits and some of our older material. If you would like to come you can find out more here!
We are very happy to announce that our Portraits album has been longlisted in the SAY Awards. You can find out more here.
Find out more about the album here https://simonthoumire.ffm.to/portraits
Music review
Portraits – Simon Thoumire and Dave Milligan
In 2001, concertina player, Simon Thoumire and pianist, Dave Mil- ligan released their first album to- gether, entitled ‘The Big Day’, a title that reflected the music having been recorded in a single day, due to the sudden availability of a recording studio.
‘Portraits’, however, took considerably longer, despite not having been conceived as an album in the first place. As was the case for many musicians, the pandemic forced the opportunity to create new music un- interrupted by gigs or touring. Such was the case for Simon Thoumire.
And with no real opportunities to collaborate in person, ‘Portraits’ consists of music sent to and fro between himself and Dave Milligan, each track representing a different person in Thoumire’s life.
The results can be heard across the album’s eleven impressive tracks.
Simon Thoumire was once an integral part of John Rae’s Celtic Feet, a band that were stalwarts of those early Islay Jazz festivals. His concer- tina playing is every bit as identifable today as it was over quarter of a century past.
Dave Milligan has appeared at several Islay Festivals and whose own album, ‘Momento’ was reviewed in these pages a few years past.
The collaboration between the two musicians is, to confine it to a single word, ‘seamless’. Thoumire’s more folk-oriented approach is matched, note for note, by Milligan’s jazzier feel. If nothing else, this particular album underlines that the Scottish folk/jazz experiments from John Rae, Colin Steele, Fergus McCreadie and more recently, Fraser Fifield, have a value that highlights them as more than just a passing fad or notion.
The opening track, ‘Come on, let us sway together’ was written as a Valentine’s Day present for Simon’s wife and sways as the very waltz you might hear at a village hall ceilidh.
‘Anastasia McAroe’s Waltz’, howev- er is a smidgeon more emphatic in its 3/4 swing. And, as a nostalgic reminder of Thoumire’s time with Celtic Feet, ‘King Bill’s Hornpipe’, though a con- temporary composition, brings back memories of ‘Beware the Feet’.
While not wishing to descend into clichéd ‘toe-tapping’ references, I dare anyone to listen to the en- tire album, while keeping both feet firmly planted on the floor, partic- ularly during ‘Louis DeCarlo’s 70th Birthday Strathspey’, (where Dave Milligan’s piano-playing provides one of the album’s finest moments), or ‘Misha’, a track dedicated to the Ukrainian pianist, the late Misha Alpern.
A joyous album.
bp
Find out more https://simonthoumire.ffm.to/portraits