Album review: Patsy Reid: Bridging the Gap

****

VERTICAL RECORDS, £12.99

ALTHOUGH easy to overlook amid the ever-burgeoning attractions of Celtic Connections, the festival's New Voices commissions have produced some memorable contributions, and allowed imaginative young musicians a chance to think outside of the usual forms and structures of traditional music. Fiddler Patsy Reid, currently a member of Braebach, brought both her traditional expertise and her classical training to bear on this emblematically titled contribution last year.

The piece is structured in three movements in the manner of a concerto, with Reid as soloist and an excellent ensemble that also features Aidan O'Rourke and Anna Wendy Stevenson among the fiddlers.

Each segment within the movements is based on a traditional form – reel, jig, slow air, march, Strathspey or hornpipe – set in a specific mode, and adds up to an attractive and skilfully assembled work that is coherent, imaginative and beautifully performed.