'I'm like a pinball machine'

JIM SUTHERLAND KNEW HE WAS getting somewhere with his latest project when Michael Nyman asked if he could join.

The top composer and pianist was so taken by La Banda Europa, Sutherland's multi-instrumental, multi-national ensemble, that he wanted to join.

"And I said no, because he only plays the piano," chuckles Sutherland. "How cheeky is that? But we left it that he might compose something for us."

Since its debut last April in Gateshead, and appearance at the Big in Falkirk festival, La Banda Europa – featuring 35 folk musicians from across Europe – has attracted attention from all quarters. After setting up a Facebook group to help the musicians keep in touch, Sutherland has noticed people like film director David Mackenzie, former newspaper editor Rosie Boycott and Dragon's Den tycoon Duncan Bannatyne dropping by to chat. A four-minute film of the band in action posted on YouTube gets about 200 hits a week.

When La Banda Europa play at Celtic Connections, it will be the group's debut on a concert stage. Sutherland believes it represents an important new direction for the project, originally conceived as a promenading band.

"The musicians were suggesting we should turn La Banda Europa into a concert orchestra, a symphony orchestra of ethnic instruments," he says. "There are some amazing musicians, they just deserve to be on a stage with people really listening."

It is in the nature of a project like this, Sutherland says, to change as it goes along. When he first had the idea, it sounded like the kind of magnificent, hare-brained scheme that might sink in a sea of practicalities before it ever set sail. And it might have, but for Sutherland's own determination.

The man himself is self-effacing. "I often feel like I've bitten off more than I can chew," he says, grinning. "It's a recurring theme, that I tend to bite off rather larger lumps than I can masticate, but I always seem to manage to get through. It never quite fails to surprise me when things are successful, I always wonder where it comes from."

One might suggest it comes from the talent and experience developed in a 30-year career which has seen him play with Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, Van Morrison and Emmylou Harris, write songs for Sony, have a top 40 hit with The Lanterns, and produce albums for such bands as Shooglenifty and Aberfeldy. He has also worked with international musicians, from Australian Aborigines to kwaito musicians from the South African townships and Hungarian band Muzsikas. La Banda Europa is his most personal project, a chance to bring his eclectic experience together in the service of a passion.

Originally from Caithness, Sutherland formed "Scottish swing" band Easy Club in 1984 to keep himself off the dole. Later he started writing music for television – the jingles from BBC Scotland and the STV weather circa 1990 are his – before being invited to a jam session with Page and Plant in a pub in Fulham prior to their appearance on MTV's Unplugged.

Then he started writing songs and despite "never having done music with words before", was signed to Sony as a songwriter, going on to form pop trio The Lanterns, who were signed to Columbia and had a top 40 hit with High Rise Town in the late 1990s. When The Lanterns disbanded, he hatched what he describes as "a five-year plan, that turned into a seven-year plan to get back into traditional music".

"My career path is a mixture of slalom and pinball machine, avoiding the obstacles and getting battered around between other people's requirements. Along the way I have lost my direction once or twice, had to regroup, reinvent myself. La Banda Europa was me doing a project where I wasn't reacting, where I have been and am able to let my imagination lead me."

The seeds of La Banda Europa were sown when Sutherland worked on the music for Annie Griffin's film Festival, a darkly funny take on the Edinburgh Fringe which won a British Comedy Award. Griffin was keen to work with a Semana Santa Band, one of the large marching bands who parade in Seville during Saints' Week. Sutherland suggested marrying their sound with that of a Scottish pipe band.

"We pitched up at this warehouse in the industrial belt of Seville where the band (La Banda Tres Caidas] rehearses. The walls are covered with big colourful pictures of the Madonna and the place is full of about 80 young hairy-arsed Spaniards. There was a vibrant, virile atmosphere, everyone competing with each other. To hear them for the first time was very special.

"At midnight, we went upstairs to a back room where we sat round a table under an anglepoise lamp with these guys in camel coats who were their managers and discussed funding. In the Sevillian tradition of discussion, it got quite heated, but we ended up good friends."

It was in the recording studio – packed with 80 Spaniards plus the Drambuie Pipe Band – that he started to think about La Banda Europa. "None of the Scottish guys spoke Spanish and very few of the Spanish guys spoke English, so there were all kinds of communication issues, but the music seemed to be a unifying force. There was an incredible cohesion between these two different groups that the music created."

This led to a Creative Scotland Award for Sutherland to go towards forming a European parading orchestra. He searched for instruments, and their players, from across the continent: Swedish nyckelharpas, French hurdy-gurdies, Turkish drummers, Armenian duduks (a kind of clarinet that sounds like an alto voice), and bagpipes from seven countries.

Then there was the challenge of understanding the capabilities and range of each instrument ("I was often on the phone asking things like 'Can you play a G above the bass clef?'") and to write music which would allow the diversity of the instruments to shine, while not allowing the louder instruments to drown out the quieter ones.

He finally gathered a group of outstanding musicians, many of whom are leading exponents of their field – the Brits include trombonist John Kenny, cellist Su-a Lee, piper Simon McKerrel and jazz maestro Dick Lee. Despite commitments in their own countries, their enthusiasm for La Banda Europa is immense. One described it as "a masterclass in musicianship".

The band debut in Gateshead was part of an outdoor theatrical production, Before the Wolf, directed by Hilary Westlake, former artistic director of EuroDisney. "I cried," says Sutherland. "It was an incredibly emotional experience for me. I cried. I had an idea of how it would sound, and you can simulate sounds on the computer, but when they get together and take your music and put their energy and enthusiasm and their hearts into it, it grows a new dimension, it becomes something very special."

At Celtic Connections, the band will play a selection of new compositions, interspersing sections played by the full line-up with showcases from smaller groups, a quartet of hurdy-gurdy players and one of nyckelharpas, a duet between the carnyx and the two-metre-long Slovenian fujara flute. There will be a trio of bagpipers and a spot of dancing "to make it more accessible and fun for the audience".

One of the highlights for Sutherland will be a piece he composed as a tribute to his mentor Hamish Henderson, inspired by a line of his Freedom Come All Ye, "All the Bairns of Adam".

"He was very important to my career at a very early stage, one of the most open, free-thinking people I've ever met. I think he would perhaps enjoy this."

Sutherland's next ambition is to make a recording with La Banda Europa, and there is talk of playing elsewhere in Europe. He says that the main obstacle is the sheer expense involved – bringing 35 musicians together from various countries for rehearsal and performance can cost as much as £50,000. "So if anyone reading this feels like putting their hand in their pocket …"

But he is encouraged by the musicians' enthusiasm. "There is a great cohesion; even though we've only done a couple of gigs, we connect with each other.

"The world is a small place for social networking and that's helped to keep La Banda Europa together. Although it's geographically unwieldy, it does feel like a band."

• La Banda Europa is at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall tonight, as part of Celtic Connections.