News

Hello,

Welcome to your second but alas final newsletter of 2011, providing an updated glimpse into some of the recent musical activities of Edinburgh based eclectic musician, Fraser Fifield, me.

To look ahead just briefly, I'm looking forward to doing a duo gig with Graeme Stephen at the Celtic Connections Festival  on 21st January 2012. We're planning a bit of time to rehearse and write this month so hopefully some results will appear on the Glasgow gig.  Do make it along if you can. Graeme and I plan to release a new album in 2012 also...that just for the outer reaches of your info radar meantime, more later. 

With Graeme, I enjoyed performing in a diverse list of destinations once again throughout the year.  Acert, Portugal and Islay Jazz Festival at the Laphroaig Distellery were memorable concerts, as were those at the Rochester Jazz Festival, USA to and from which we saw a section of New York state through the window of a train. Here (left), Graeme displays appropriate levels of job satisfaction mixed with the prospect of starting our badly planned journey back home, via Penn Central, Newark and Belfast. 

I'm excited to be a part of Take 5 Europe 2012. One of two UK musicians (along with Tom Arthurs) to be selected for this artist development scheme run by Serious, we'll meet and play with 8 other musicians: Céline Bonacina, France (saxophones), Benjamin Flament, France (vibraphone/percussion), Bram Stadhouders, the Netherlands (guitar), Oene van Geel, the Netherlands (viola), Gard Nilssen, Norway (drums), Ole Morten Vagan, Norway (bass), Maciej Garbowski, Poland (bass), Maciej Obara, Poland (alto saxophone), Tom Arthurs, UK (trumpet/flugelhorn) . Take Five Europe has a website with more info here. 

Back in March this year I went to Aust- 

My friends the Hidden Orchestra have had a busy year gigging round Europe at a tremendous rate. They invited me along on several trips.  I'm not really that up for camping when it comes to gigging, an opinion formed at the little festival they have in June near Glastonbury, but am certainly up for more of the likes of North Sea Jazz, Jazz Sous Les Pommiers, Sofia, Copenhagen, Stuttgart and many other great (mostly jazz) festivals we visited.  The band also play at Celtic Connections festival on 2nd Feb where some new material will be revealed. 

James Ross invited me to be a part of his composition The Boy and the Bunnett twhich is a Peter and the Wolf like tale involving a small folk ensemble and narrator, designed for children and adults alike in either Scots or Gaelic, successfully premiered in the latter tongue at the Blas Festival, Inverness in September and recently recorded for future release.

Stepping in for violinist Greg Lawson, who was tied up with SSO proms gigs, it was a pleasure to play with Moishes Bagel again in the summer in Kracow,  Namest nad Oslavou and Sidmouth.   A shame Greg's never there when I am, but a gig has come in playing bagpipes in a piece with the SSO in April so we'll hook up then...if it's good, I'll report back in due course.   

As it stands 'Broken Click Track' only did one gig, but it was a glorious one, closing the dance tent at Towersey Festival in August.  The idea of Martin Green (I think), accordionist of Lau, 'BCT' combined two trios - Martin's own and his wife Inge's (Thomson), making a total of 5 musicians and a lot of electronic gadgetry onstage. Karine Polwart also leant a hand on the gig. Hopefully we'll do a 2012 gig too. 

Martin, Inge and I also spent   some memorable days (and flights on and off) on the islands of Fair Isle and Shetland, performing for the Tall Ships race participants, those who made it that far on time, and locals too. The tent was the gig venue in Fair Isle, pictured in calmer times. Come the night of our performance a breeze had picked up and there was a pick-up truck tied to it, hanging down the slope, preventing our nice gig blowing away. 

Still available on the BBC website is Calum MacCrimmon's 'When Birds Migrate', one of a series of commissions by Radio Scotland's Global Gathering/ Creative Scotland with an islands theme. I was involved playing soprano, whistle and kaval alongside some heartfelt chanting, whooping and other instruments, influence drawn from Canada's east coast Mi'kmaq tribe alongside our own.  Turned out nice.

My Youtube channel is becoming slightly more respectable these days with a variety of clips added over the months. Please have a look and share atwww.youtube.com/tanarrecords

I wish you a happy and peaceful end to this year and a continuation of that exact same vibe well into the next. 

All the best for now,

Fraser

ps: I have 4 CDs for sale on my website all throughout the looming shopping festival and beyond, perhaps the easiest present out there to wrap...