Yale Bulletin and Calendar

March 23, 2007|Volume 35, Number 22

Music of the Scottish Highlands
to be featured in concert

A concert of "pibroch," rarely heard 17th-century Gaelic art music for Highland bagpipes, will be performed along with 21st-century bagpipe-inspired compositions at 6 p.m. on Friday, March 30, in Dwight Chapel, 67 High St.

The concert is free and open to the public.

Matthew Welch will be the guest performer, presenting both traditional and original compositions, including his own new music for bagpipes and string quartet, and an organ work by Yale School of Music composition student Robinson McClellan.

Pibroch is the "classical" music of the Scottish Highlands, used in ceremonial life in the 16th and 17th centuries, with roots in medieval forms that have otherwise disappeared from music history. Since the 18th century, pibroch has rarely been played outside a small circle of professional piping competitions.

A resurgence of interest in this music has led to the discovery of long-lost compositional formulas using the pibroch's hypnotic patterns, and pibroch-inspired works have been composed for every imaginable ensemble, from solo voice to orchestra to live-processing electronic rock crossover. In Britain and Europe, pibroch recitals have been drawing large crowds.

Welch is widely recognized for his fusion of Celtic and Indonesian influences in his compositions for the bagpipe. McClellan is pursuing doctoral research in pibroch's unique rhythmic idiom and its implications for 21st-century creative musicians.

The concert is co-sponsored by Bulldog Pipes and Drums, with support from the Office of Graduate Student Life at the McDougal Center, and others.

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