FitkinWall – Harpland at Shetland Arts
FitkinWall have been working on a new album and show for 2023-24! Over the last couple of years we have been exploring the Scottish Highlands and the theme of migration in its many forms. Graham has composed new works based on old Gaelic songs and tunes from bagpipe and fiddle books for my three harps – the beautiful medieval Gaelic wire harp (clàrsach), the buzzing Renaissance bray harp and the Scottish lever harp. This is an opportunity to hear us perform the works from our new FitkinWall album, as ancient music is re-imagined in looping, evolving patterns.
My background growing up in Sutherland, in the Scottish Highlands has driven the new album and the music you will hear in the show. The enforced eviction and subsequent migration of crofters from the highlands, as part of the Clearances which benefited landlords, gentry and wealthy Southern sheep farmers, provides a central focus.
The performance will feature snippets of interviews from people who have migrated into the Highlands in the last 50 years.
” .. The combination works lyrical wonders. It’s a music of reverie, one that moves like vapour, thickening and clearing, never staying still or returning to the same place twice”. Songlines
‘Variously recalling Steve Reich, Ennio Morricone, Bowie, John Coltrane and Talvin Singh, Fitkin Wall’s mesmerising, multi-layered canvass marries neo-classical, electronica and jazz to create an enticing, sumptuous, body of work.’ Last FM on Still Warm
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CREATIVE TEAM
Composer, Electronics, Sound Design, Editing – Graham Fitkin
All harps, Interviewer – Ruth Wall
Sound Technician for tour – Charlie Rickett
Technical advice – Alessandro Baldessari
Senior Consulting Engineer – Tim Oliver, Real World Studios
Film – Berta Valverde
Huge thanks also to:
Cultivator Cornwall, Scottish Faiths Action for Refugees, Patricia Findlay, Tonia Liu, Rosie, Tony and especially to our Interviewees – Lewis Backie, Marija Matvejeva, Mariya Bezkorovanya, Farhad, Shameran Lafferty, Brigitte Geddes, Malcolm Baxter, Rhona and Alec Morrison.
