Duo’s unique blend of harp and pipes

Apr 17 2009 by Alison Anderson, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

PERTHSHIRE piper Gary West is joined by Dumfries and Galloway harpist Wendy Stewart on their first CD as a duo.

‘Hinterlands’ was launched at the opening concert of the Edinburgh International Harp Festival in Merchiston Castle School.

Wendy and Gary have been playing together since they met in the 1980s in the Scottish folk group Ceolbeg, one of the leaders in the Celtic revival.

Wendy explained: “We have done a lot of playing together since Ceolbeg days, and have really enjoyed exploring the unique blend between bagpipes and harp.”

It isn’t only their instruments which blend on Hinterland; their voices do too.

The album features an eclectic mix of songs, including from the 1600s a graceful Port from the Straloch manuscript and a lively Lancashire hornpipe, to Burns’ The Slave’s Lament and Ae Fond Kiss, and in to the present century.

Music by Gordon Duncan is an important element of Hinterland. Gordon, who died in 2005 aged just 41, grew up in Pitlochry alongside Gary and developed into one of the finest pipers and traditional composers Scotland has ever produced.

Gary is on the Board of the Gordon Duncan Memorial Trust which has organised two very successful memorial concerts in Perth. At the inaugural concert in 2007 a raffle was held for the right to provide a name to a previously untitled and unrecorded tune by Gordon, with the prize going to an Australian who appropriately named the tune ‘Full Moon Down Under’.

Another Hinterland track is Gordon Cottage, composed by Gary and his brother Niall to celebrate the golden wedding in 2008 of their parents, Marie and Norrie West, of Gordon Cottage, Pitlochry.

“For our first recording together, we wanted to select songs and tunes which have a special significance for us, whether they’re in honour of good friends, family or personal to our own part of Scotland, or just special to us because we enjoy them. We hope that they’re as enjoyable to listen to as they were to perform,” said Gary.

Gary learned his piping with the much acclaimed Vale of Atholl Pipe Band, with whom he played for 18 years winning both the Scottish and European Championships.

He is head of Celtic and Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh and presents BBC Radio Scotland’s weekly specialist piping programme, Pipeline.