Shona Donaldson report

Shona Donaldson – Deveron Arts Residency Oct 2009 - March 2011 Final Report

Performances (main) November 2009 – Trad Awards in Dumfries, Scots Singer of the Year 2009 November – St Andrews Concert in Tarland December – Hogmanay at The Newton Hotel, Nairn January 2010 – Live Broadcast for Travelling Folk – BBC Radio Scotland January – The Tron Theatre in Glasgow – Celtic Connections May – Aberlour Kirk, Aberlour June – Keith Festival (various venues throughout the weekend.)

June – Edinburgh Castle, EIFF, Sir Sean Connery’s 80th birthday party July and August - 4 ceilidhs in Huntly August - 5 ceilidhs in Ballater September – Blas workshops in Dingwall Academy and performance in Beauly September – Dublin, Ireland (3 concerts over the weekend) October – London Folk Club October - Swindon Folk Club October - Longeaton Folk Club October – Doric Festival Ballad Bus October – Sound Festival, OAP Hall, Huntly October – Charity Concert, Thainstone, Inverurie November – Fundraiser for Gordon Highlanders Museum, The Marcliffe Hotel, Aberdeen November – Aberdeen Fiddlers Rally, The Music Hall, Aberdeen November – Dundee Fiddlers Rally, The Caird Hall, Dundee.

December – The Trad Awards, Perth Concert Hall, Perth.

December – Hogmanay Concert, The Music Hall, Aberdeen

January – Edinburgh Folk Club January 2011 – Burns Supper, Howth, Dublin, January – The Goillin, Dublin January – Burns Supper, British Ambassador’s Residence, Brussels January – Burns Supper, Scotland House, Brussels February – Stonehaven Folk Club

Education work Gordon Primary School, Huntly.

I have been in the primary school working with the 2 nursery classes, and primary 1-3 pupils during Doric Week, for a total of 8 workshops. I taught simple games, rhymes, local songs and Doric words.

This included clapping games, skipping games, movement games, warm up games and songs and I worked on co-ordination, singing, learning by ear, performance and language skills. I was also a judge for the primary 1-3 Doric poetry competition. This was the first time it had been held and was in memory of Annie Macdonald, a former teacher at the primary who actively encouraged Doric (and indeed was my Primary 1 teacher!)

The Gordon Schools, Huntly From November 09 to June 2010 I taught 3 first year music classes every week for an hour each. (3 hours total a week in school) They were given a broad introduction to Scottish song and then we concentrated on local songs and traditions of Huntly and the surrounding areas. In each class we wrote 2 songs and the pupils enjoyed having the freedom of being able to write, speak and sing in their mother tongue. These songs were traditional songs but we changed the words to make them local, by mentioning places they knew of in the local area and many times where they lived and specific farms. I also taught Doric words and the origins of these and each pupil was encouraged to use these words when speaking to me and each other within the classroom. There have been many discussions with the pupils about the issues within Scots song and how they are relevant to life today. We have been concentrating on Bothy Ballads and they have been learning about the different types of bothy ballads. In March 2011 I have been working with the History department and have been in class singing ballads and songs of the period which they are studying. This has been the reign of Mary Queen of Scots and the feedback from the pupils was that they felt they would remember more and learnt better hearing the “lesson” in song.

Over the residency I had various meeting with both the English, Music and Drama departments about what we could achieve with my residency in terms of what I could do with the pupils. The drama teacher plainly said that it would mess up his schedule in the department and he wasn’t keen on working with me. I had 2 meetings with the English department who didn’t seem keen on this either. st My meeting with the Music department was a revelation. I worked with 3 1 year classes on a regular basis and the class teachers could not have been more helpful or interested. They left me to my own devices (when appropriate) and let me teach the children. They were very happy for me to be working with them and felt that Scottish song and its relevant subject matters were sometimes not taught enough in school. I felt I was contributing to the curriculum.

Private Teaching I have 5 pupils every 2 weeks in Huntly, throughout my residency.

Research work I have been mainly working for the Greig-Duncan, Last Leaves and Ords collections as main reference and research books. Huntly library has proved to be an invaluable place of research as the census are located there and as most Bothy Ballads have been written anonymously (or with little clues) it has been great to be able to look up the farms and see the workforce at a specific point in time. Os Maps within the library have proved useful. I have been working in the Huntly Express archives as Dr Shearer, a former rector at the secondary school, had a regular column in the local paper and he had a keen interest in Scots song. I have also rediscovered a local ballad called "Willie Cumming". Cumming murdered his wife at Inschtammack, outside Huntly in December 1910 and the details were printed in the Huntly Express along with a ballad, composed with all the gruesome details. I have researched the songs of “The Troups of Ythanside” (3 brothers who contributed a number of songs to The Grieg-Duncan Collection).

Commissioning work The total number of songs recorded for the cd was 13 (including one tune set). 9 of the tracks are either original or have original words or music. The 4 remaining songs are traditional but I have edited them to make my own version, so although they are traditional I have altered them slightly to suit myself so no one else will actually sing the exact same version as me. I have also written 3 other completely original songs but felt at the time of recording that they were not of a suitable enough standard to be included on the cd. The cd was recorded at Jonny Hardies studio (with a baby grand piano) and fiddle as well. I tried to keep the tracks as live as possible. This worked to a certain degree but they needed “tidying up” and mastering at PHI studios in Leslie. Niall Matthewson at PHI mastered and recorded 4 tracks for the cd as Jonny Hardie did not have the equipment to master and mix to the same standard at PHI. As well as songs I have written around 8 new tunes for the fiddle, 3 of which are included on the cd. One tune was written for the piano and this has been recorded and will feature on the cd.

Workshops I have done one workshop for the local group “The Strathspey Fiddlers”. Although I didn’t teach any Huntly songs the workshop did tie in with the Scots Song and language aspect of the residency. The participants (aged from 13-24) enjoyed singing in 3 part harmony and arranging songs as part of a band.

I was invited by the Blas Festival to do a workshop to senior music pupils at Dingwall Academy. This was an opportunity which I was surprised at because Blas is a Gaelic festival but none the less the pupils enjoyed the afternoon and I taught them the Huntly Bothy Ballad “The Rovin Ploughboy”. I also sang a number of songs which are local to Huntly.

I was also invited to do a short workshop for all pupils at Stonehaven Primary school. The pupils (400) enjoyed singing along with easy bothy ballads.

The Bothy Ballad Bus In October I organised, in conjunction with Deveron Arts and The Doric Festival the bothy ballad bus which toured Huntly and surrounding areas visiting various farms/castles and singing the songs or

playing the tunes about the specific place. The bus was a sell out and performing were fiddler Paul Anderson (who also played on the cd) and myself. On board were a journalist and photographer from The Glasgow Herald who then did a 2 page article about the Bus and the project which was then on front cover of the Arts Supplement.

General comments and feedback My residency was due to start in October 2009 but in September I found out I was pregnant with my 2nd child. Obviously I was worried about how this would affect my work but I found Deveron Arts to be very understanding and flexible during this time. My first couple of months were very difficult and I found I didn’t achieve as much as I would have liked. This was due to my suffering from Hyperemesis Gravidarum (severe sickness) which ended with me being admitted to Aberdeen Hospital and being put on a drip for several weeks. I was admitted twice. I found that my residency didn’t start properly until November/December. I explained this to Deveron Arts and we decided to extend the project to it ended in November/December. I was on crutches due to SPD and sciatica from the end of February until my baby was born in April. I found it very difficult and painful to get around and was glad that we had decided to do a year part-time instead of 6 months full-time.

When I couldn’t get around I spent a lot of the time working on new material and writing news songs and tunes and this continued up until Roderick was born and again, afterwards. He was born on the 16th of April and my first gig was on the 28th May. I was quite disappointed about the school work with The Gordon Schools but felt it was out of my control and that I didn’t want to irritate the departments when they wanted to teach the national curriculum. Although I had a project in mind for each department this obviously didn’t work out. I was very glad to have worked with the History department and have emailed the history teachers with various songs which can relate to the curriculum and if they wish I will continue to work with the department and visit to sing to them if they wanted the input.

At every performance mentioned I have sung at least two of the songs I have recorded for the cd.

This has given me the opportunity to promote both Huntly songs and Deveron Arts. During my residency I won “The Scots Singer of The Year” at the MG Alba Traditional Music Awards. This was a national awards ceremony and the public decided the winners of each category. It was an honour to have won and I have been the youngest winner of this award. As I won in 2009 I was asked back to the Awards the following year to perform 2 songs. I chose as one of my songs “Bogie’s banks and Braes” an original song which I wrote during my residency. The performance was recorded for television and shown on BBC Alba. Again, I made mention of Deveron Arts in my introduction.

I wasn’t very happy with the concert which was organised as part of the Sound Festival. Although this had nothing to do with Deveron Arts I felt that the Sound festival didn’t organise it too well.

Around 3 days before the concert my mother phoned the Sound festival to get tickets or to see if tickets were available on the door. She phoned the Box Office in Aberdeen (who, as far as I’m aware, were selling the tickets for all events on behalf of the Festival) and the person on the other end of the line didn’t know anything about the concert. It took a lot of time to find out about the tickets and she was told that there wasn’t enough time for her to buy the tickets and for them to post them out to Huntly. She would have to come into Aberdeen to collect them. This wasn’t

feasible as Aberdeen is a 40 minute drive. She then asked if there would be tickets on the door and was told there would not be. Obviously, slightly surprised she then phoned me, and I told her to just come along as I’m sure we could sort something out. Deveron Arts said that that would be fine and they were selling tickets on the door. The concert was part of a festival called Huntly Hairst and although there were other events on I felt that perhaps the Sound Festival’s lack of organisation contributed to the low numbers of the audience. If others had been phoning for tickets only to be told they had to go into Aberdeen to get them (and there were none on the door) they may not have bothered coming to the concert.

There was a slight misunderstanding over the Bothy Ballad Bus. Deveron Arts did a fantastic job of emailing flyers and advertising and indeed there was a waiting list for tickets. I was told there would be a photographer on the bus to take photos of me which was fine. The problem was that he had not been booked a seat and he got on board and sat down without saying anything. We did a roll call (to make sure we hadn’t missed anyone) and he didn’t say anything. There was a man who was late coming up from Glasgow and although we couldn’t wait for him he agreed to meet us on the journey later on. He joined the bus at Culsalmond and obviously didn’t have a seat, luckily enough he agreed to sit on the floor for the remainder of the trip but I felt quite embarrassed about the situation.

The situation with the cd has been the cause of quite a few problems. I admit that recording the cd at Jonny Hardies was a mistake but I very much wanted to have a proper piano (not a keyboard) and Jonny was happy to let us use his. He has a lot of experience in recording and has his own equipment so had no initial qualms about it. We spent two days recording the cd (which in my experience is very quick!) and he said he was to mix it and then we’d get it mastered at PHI. Jonny then went away on tour for a long time (which I didn’t know about) and hadn’t sent me the cd so it put the project back by quite a bit. When I eventually got the cd it wasn’t mixed to the standard I had expected and I was disappointed. We then had to spend time at PHI with Niall re-mixing and mastering the cd until we were happy enough with it. Once this had been done there came the decisions about the sleeve and info to be included. I was surprised at the cost of getting it designed as a friend of mine who has just produced her own cd had hers done for 1/3 of the price. I also felt that it was a bit strange that Deveron Arts only got 2 quotes for the design as I thought that there should have been more companies asked. I perhaps should have mentioned something but through my naivety and having never done a cd before I didn’t. Fiona, who designed the cd, had her very own specific ideas about how it should look and was quite adamant that her creativity should not be compromised. Although I understood this I felt that if it was my material on the cd and my face on the cover I should be happy about how it looked overall as it would be representative of my work.

There were a few heated moments and I must say it added a huge amount of stress to the project.

We eventually came to a decision and the cd was sent for production. The launch is to be 20th April 2011 at The Masonic Hall in Huntly.