🐨 Australia 🇦🇺

National Celtic Festival of Australia

with Megan MacDonald and Chloë Bryce at National Celtic Festival of Australia

Photo by Melbourne Ceili Camera

Last month, I had the privilege of travelling to Australia with my new band with Megan MacDonald (accordion) and Chloë Bryce (fiddle) for the National Celtic Festival of Australia in Portarlington. We were invited out to the festival, which takes place around 90mins from Melbourne, thanks to the connection they have with Fèis Rois, whose Cèilidh Trail project lead to the three of us meeting back in 2016.

Though it was the furthest (and longest: 20hrs + on the plane) I'd travelled, I must proclaim that I am the queen of jet lag. After arriving in Portarlington (via Doha and Melbourne) I managed to hold out until midnight before going to sleep, and I woke up fresh as a daisy at 08:00 the following morning - bloody ripper!!

Left: amateur disc golfers

Right: whisky sours at Staple Deli.

Raring to go, our first daylight stop was at Staple Eatery & Deli, a great wee coffee shop, deli and pizza place which became our favourite haunt while we were in Portarlington. We were then treated to a lush day of kangaroo-spotting, wine-tasting, and disc-golfing by our artist liaison, Gavin, who was specially appointed by the festival, or so we thought - we actually never saw him again and are starting to get worried!

Left: radio interview on 94.7 The Pulse moments before Chloë gave a wrong answer and relinquished her headset to Megan.

Right: the three of us with festival director, Una McAlinden

We had a busy time at the festival, playing five gigs over four days at the various creatively-named venues: Parks Hall - this was an actual brick and mortar venue, presumably not named by the festival; The Village Tavern - wine bar vibes. Think Celtic Connections Late Night Sessions but with more Aussies and it's a tent; and The Celtic Club - think Celtic Connections Festival Club but with more See You Jimmy hats. Also a tent.

On the Saturday, I had the pleasure of taking part in the Celebration of the Unaccompanied Traditional Song at the wonderful St Patrick's Church, which was hosted by the Irish singer, Aoife Dermody. The concert featured traditional aboriginal singing, Irish singing and diddling, Romanian singing, and some songs from myself and fellow Scot, Fiona Ross. I really enjoyed this gig in particular because I haven't sung unaccompanied in a very long time, and because I was able to pay tribute to my singing teacher, Rod Paterson, who sadly passed away the week prior.

Left: a sketch by Suzy

Right: down at the beach, photo also taken by Suzy

We had such a great time at the National Celtic Festival and can't wait to go back to Australia. We all felt such a buzz around the festival grounds and it was so nice to have so many people strike up conversations with us about our music, and to see so many brilliant bands over the weekend. It was such a pleasure to get to know the Portarlington locals too - great craic all round!

Thanks again to Fèis Rois and Una McAlinden at the festival.

After we parted ways - Megan back to Glasgow, Chloë off to New Zealand (jammy) - I had a couple of days downtime in Melbourne. Despite being greeted by an old bathtub, and assorted bathroom detritus on the front lawn of my Airbnb, I had a great stay and got to see some cool museums, drink great coffee, and panic about getting done for being out of the free tram zone without a Myki*.

Melb highlight (not pictured): Bakemono Bakers

Melb midlight (left): exhibition at the NGV

Melb lowlight (right): fuzzy remains at the National Tennis Centre

*Melbourne tram card iykyk

Other June Happenings

Midsummer Music at The Scottish Crannog Centre

The Round House at The Scottish Crannog Centre. Fiona (5' 9") for scale.

I had a brilliantly unique Summer Solstice gig, playing in an "upturned basket" at The Scottish Crannog Centre for their Midsummer Music event. If you don't already know, The Scottish Crannog Centre is an Iron Age village on the bonnie shores of Loch Tay, near Aberfeldy. It has recreations of some amazing old structures, like The Round House, which was my venue for the night. The event also featured music from John Dew, amongst others, who was accompanied by Michael Biggins.

London Jaunt

Perhaps an even stranger gig the following week: solo mandolin for a "VVIP" event at Westminster Abbey. I even got to arrive by (sightseeing) boat having boarded at Greenwich Harbour via my brother's. Perhaps more photos to come.

Upcoming Gigs

In other news...

ELÍR - Broomfield Wager live at Edinburgh Tradfest

A live video from ELÍR at the ETF Spotlight gig at the Traverse Theatre back in May.

DOTS! (Sheet music downloads)

Occasionally, I'm asked for the sheet music for my tunes by people who want to have a bash at learning them, so I decided to create a page on my website for this. So far, I have added three tunes: Big Pick Energy, At Very Least, and Greta Ross' Birthday. Each one can be downloaded (for free) as a PDF, written in standard notation or standard notation + guitar/mandolin TAB.

Why not have a go! Click the button below.

Plenty more gigs and other things to tell you about soon.

Until next time! 👋🏻