A Celebration of the Music of Gordon Duncan - A National Treasure
Perth Concert Hall, Saturday 29th September, 2007
People say there are things in life you will always remember, places you have been and things you have done. You remember where you were when JFK was shot or when the Twin Towers were crashed into or when man walked on the moon. You remember the birth of your first child. Well I remember where I was when I learned of the death of Gordon Duncan. It was the 15th December 2005 and Gordon was just 41 years old.
There are few figures within the traditional music world, certainly in the modern day, who can be seen as having such a defining impact on the tradition as Gordon Duncan did with so many of his tunes known all around the world. I regret that I never met the man or got to hear him play live in concert and those who knew him would be able to eulogise him better than myself or to convey one of the many humorous stories that abound about Gordon during his life. It is testament to the man however that his loss was felt by so many all around the world whether they had met him or not.
Following his death the Duncan family and friends got together and formed a charitable trust in his honour to raise funds to promote piping and traditional music amongst young people in Scotland. So many of Gordon's tunes are known and heard round the world but what is known less is how much teaching he did to pass on the tradition to others. It is the trust's aim to honour this and continue Gordon's work as much as possible.
The 29th September saw the culmination of a long effort to put together a concert in memory of Gordon. Held in Perth Concert Hall it brought together a wide range of artists from the traditional world from Scotland and abroad, including musicians from Asturias and Brittany. It was a broad cross-section of artists who all had links to Gordon and his life and music, all who gave up their time in order to remember 'A National Treasure'. The whole event was programmed and arranged by Ross Ainslie and Brian McAlpine.
It is hard to describe the concert, a complete sell-out, if you were not there. The night was not sad in any way. It was a celebration of Gordon's life and music and an occasion to be happy and pay tribute. The concert opened with The Pipe Band of the Atholl Highlanders marching and playing on to the stage from the back of the hall, followed by a slow air on the Uillean Pipes from Jarlath Henderson. When they left they were replaced by Gordon's father, Jock Duncan, the great North-East ballad singer from Pitlochry who entertained everyone with his "Ploo'in Match at Hogmanay". In his broadest Doric he told of how he went down to London once to something called a 'folk club'. When he was finished a chap came up to him and said how he enjoyed Jock's performance but confessed he could not understand a word of it. "Thank goodness", he said, that he was now back in Perthshire where the audience would be able to understand every word he said!
The concert was MC'd by Gary West and Fiona Ritchie and many of the concert performers were backed by the house band for the evening, Session A9. Some of the other highlights of the evening included The National Youth Pipe Band led, for their set, by Gordon's 13 year old nephew in a wild set of Gordon's tunes. Gordon's son was helping with percussion for much of the night. Allan MacDonald played a couple of outstanding sets and Ross Ainslie and Ali Hutton joined together to play Gordon's adaptation of AC/DC's Thunderstruck on the Great Highland Bagpipes.
There was a raffle drawn on the night, the tickets for which had been selling long in advance of the concert, with one prize, the naming of a yet-unnamed Gordon Duncan tune, which was performed by Ian Duncan, Gordon's brother, along with Ross and Ali. It was fitting that the prize should be won by someone from Australia!
Artists performing on the night included:- The Pipe Band of the Atholl Highlanders
- Jarlath Henderson
- Jock Duncan
- Ali Hutton
- Ross Ainslie
- Maggie MacInnes
- Session A9
- Kris Drever
- Sylvian Hamon & Bobo
- Allan MacDonald
- Xose Manuel Tejedor
- Éamonn Coyne
- Duncan Chisholm
- National Youth Pipe Band
- Dougie MacLean
For more information on the work of the trust check out:
http://www.gordonduncan.co.uk
- Alistair
10.10.2007. 10:33
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