Tradition Alive and Well on Cape Breton Island

[SherbrookeJacobite]

Scottish Highland traditions are alive and well on Cape Breton. There is a young generation of artists who are working hard to ensure that the music, dance and language of their ancestors is kept alive.

Mabou concert showcases young musicians and mentors

-by Frank MacDonald

Web Posted Wednesday, April 19, 2006

In the Mabou parish hall on Sunday evening a large crowd attended a concert showcasing the results of a special program held last winter.

Under the sponsorship of Feis Mhabu, Melody and Derrick Cameron developed an eight-week program designed to bring young musicians together with more experienced performers in a series of house ceilidhs. The rationale for the project was that in a relaxed atmosphere of a kitchen or living room mixing the talented generations together would make for an easier exchange of questions and discussion, as well as offering young musicians a chance to play with some legendary names in Cape Breton music.

As a result of the Camerons’ experiment of re-creating the traditional setting, the house ceilidh, where the young learned from older performers, it was evident at Sunday’s concert that the program had the positive effect its organizers had hoped for.

Through the Musical Mentorship Program, held through November and December of 2005, young fiddlers such as Katie MacLeod, Kyle MacDonald, Anita LeBlanc, Kolton MacDonell, and Rachel Davis had a weekly opportunity to sit and play with and learn from Melody Cameron or Kinnon Beaton one week and Carl MacKenzie the next and Buddy MacMaster and other established performers of Cape Breton music.

Young pianists such as Isaac Fraser or Kolton MacDonell had the benefit of playing with and learning from Betty Lou Beaton, Mac Morin and Hilda Chiasson-Cormier.

Young Celtic guitarists like Stewart MacInnis found themselves playing in someone’s living room with J.P. Cormier or Brian Doyle or Patrick Gillis.

On Sunday evening, many of the young participants and mentors presented to the public the value of the program, and the proceeds of the concert will go towards continuing the program.

Derrick Cameron, in explaining for the audience the strategy behind the program, said that they had chosen some of the most proficient young musicians they could find, but he also added that most of these young performers are themselves quite experienced on stage and in other cultural arenas. But few of them, he noted, had ever had an opportunity to just sit and banter and jam with musicians like Kinnon Beaton or Carl MacKenzie or J.P. Cormier, and the process of ceilidhs he hoped would provide a connection between the music’s tradition bearers and those who one day take up that role.

In a 21-act concert, the audience was welcomed by the young musicians in an opening number, and then the evening turned into a mix-and-match that saw Anita MacDonald stepdancing to Kinnon and Betty Lou; Kolton MacDonell accompanied by Betty Lou Beaton; Katie MacLeod stepping to Melody, Derrick and Mac Morin; Baddeck fiddler Rachel Davis in a solo accompanied by Mac Morin and Patrick Gillis; brothers Keith and Kyle MacDonald performing on fiddle and pipes, accompanied by Mac and Patrick; Andrea LeBlanc stepdancing to Kinnon and Betty Lou; guitarist Stewart MacInnis accompanied by J.P. Cormier; Kolton MacDonell stepping to the music of Carl MacKenzie; Rankin MacInnis and Keith MacDonald in a bag pipe performance accompanied by Mac Morin; Anita MacDonald in a fiddle solo with Mac and Patrick; Katie MacLeod in a fiddle solo accompanied by Betty Lou.

In addition to the young/experienced match-ups there were also huge portions of music from the matching up of the mentors themselves. Kinnon and Betty Lou Beaton opened the show; Mac Morin and Betty Lou then performed a piano duet while Patrick Gillis’s guitar took on the role of accompaniment for the pianos; J.P. Cormier and Hilda performed a fiddle solo; Ronald MacKenize provided a Gaelic song; Carl MacKenzie, accompanied by Hilda Chiasson-Cormier, played a fiddle solo; J.P. Cormier and Patrick Gillis performed a Celtic guitar duet; and Melody Cameron step danced to Carl MacKenzie’s fiddle, accompanied by J.P.’s guitar and Hilda’s piano.

For a finale, pianist Isaac Fraser and guitarist Stewart MacInnis accompanied the young fiddlers, led by Katie MacLeod, with Kinnon Beaton and Carl MacKenzie as guests of the young musicians.

The success of the concert, like the success of the Musical Mentorship Program, will go a long way towards insuring that the program continues as a way of providing young musicians with the kind of ceilidh exposure that can deepen their understanding of the music, and the culture from which it arose.