Brian McNeill OLD

Brian McNeill is in the 51st year of a career that has established him as one of the most acclaimed forces in Scottish music. His gig features a wall of instruments - fiddle, octave fiddle, guitars, mandocello, bouzouki and concertina - and a wealth of songs that have found their way into many other performers' repertoires across three continents. Add an acerbic humour and a passionate belief in the tradition's future as well as its past and you have a performance of emotion, fun and sheer magic.

As host and co-ordinator of the Saturday Session, Brian presents a slice of the Festival’s best and encourages musicians to make room outside their own repertoires and work with each other to create unique musical snapshots and form new collaborations, some of which have lasted long beyond the weekend. Brian is the longest running booked artist at Cambridge Festival. His new album is No Silence, on Greentrax.

"Scotland's most meaningful contemporary songwriter" - The Scotsman

"There are simply not enough superlatives to describe McNeill's solo set. After a slow air, he had the good judgement to launch without pause into four reels, sparing the audience the decision of whether to applaud or merely sit in stunned silence after his breathtaking rendition of the complex, brooding tune". North Carolina Spectator.

 

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