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Tag: Celtic

Celtic

TransAtlantic Seaway in Glasgow: Day 2

Berklee VP for student affairs/Scotland fan Larry Bethune covers the TransAtlantic Seaway Music Collaboration’s first trip to Glasgow, with help from Scottish culture promoter David Christie.

TransAtlantic Seaway

DAY 2—WED 26 JAN “We had planned a summit but only had time to grab an ale”

Larry B.:

The day starts off with another buffet breakfast at the hotel (how musicians love all-you-care-to-eat buffets). Back to the Piping Centre for more rehearsals. Maureen McMullan and I give interviews to be mixed into the footage of the BBC show we will tape tonight. The show will be aired throughout the UK; they are exploring a deal with PBS in America. Finlay MacDonald, head of piping at both the Piping Center and the RSAMD (he’s played for royalty and with P-Diddy) will also do an interview.

At 2:00 p.m. we start our sound check at the BBC rehearsal at the Glasgow Art Club. I think the crew is having a collective heart attack as I insist that we CAN get 17 musicians on a stage designed for 6… we do it all the time. And we succeed; the tight formation yields tight music.

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Berklee meets Scotland at the New Hampshire Highland Games

Berklee alumna Maureen McMullan, part of the Transatlantic Seaway Music Collaboration, performs at Berklee's Don Was tribute in 2009 (admittedly not a very Celtic event). Photo copyright Phil Farnsworth.

According to the color-coded schedule I got from Larry Bethune, VP for student affairs/dean of students, the two dozen? members of the Transatlantic Seaway Music Collaboration have just arrived at Loon Mountain for the New Hampshire Highland Games. It’s the debut of a collaboration between Berklee, the University of Strathclyde, and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, with support from Glasgow UNESCO City of Music.

The team includes:

6 Fiddle    4 Guitars    2 Pipes   2 Whistle

2 Clarsach    1 Banjo    1 Mandolin

2 Vocals    1 Keyboards   1 Accordion

1 Cello    1 Semi-bodhran

2 Multi-instrumentalists

That has got to be one loud bus.

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