Edinburgh Tradfest: Rona Lightfoot and Allan Macdonald
A very special show for Edinburgh Tradfest brings together two of Gaelic music’s most renowned and influential pipers and singers: Rona Lightfoot and Allan Macdonald!
About Edinburgh Tradfest: Rona Lightfoot and Allan Macdonald
The trailblazer for women pipers, Rona Lightfoot is a world-renowned instrumentalist, singer, story-teller and teacher. She was born on South Uist in 1936 to a family rich in pipers, and her first music lessons came from her parents, then her uncle Angus Campbell. Teaching was in Canntaireachd, a way of notating pibroch orally.
Rona began competing as a piper at the age of 12, but many of the competitions were for ‘men only’, something she campaigned against. She became the first woman to compete in the coveted Bratach Gorm (Blue Banner) after applying pressure to the Scottish Piping Society of London, quoting the Sex Discrimination Act. However, she was only allowed to compete once.
Her value as a singer, tradition bearer and raconteur can not be underestimated and she has performed across Scotland, Canada and the United States. She finally recorded an album, Eadarainn, in 2004, and featured in Brìghde Chaimbeul's debut album The Reeling, released in 2019. Chaimbeul was initially inspired to learn the pipes at the age of four when she heard Lightfoot playing.
Besides Chaimbeul the numbers of young singers and pipers who have benefited from Rona’s tuition and inspiration are legion. She has taught at many feisean and given numerous workshops throughout Scotland and beyond, also acting as judge at piping meetings.
Allan MacDonald is a mere whippersnapper, born 20 years after Rona in Glenuig, Moidart. A leading light in the Gaelic musical scene, he is in demand internationally as a composer, musical director, piper, singer, workshop leader, and lecturer on Gaelic music. One of his myriad gifts is to make pibroch accessible and lovable. His work as a scholar-performer reuniting seventeenth-century piping with its Gaelic roots is influencing a whole generation of pipers.
Allan has performed at every major Celtic and piping festival on the planet. He lectures on the Scottish Music course at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama, and has had numerous commissions to compose for BBC television. In 1999 and 2004, Allan directed two pioneering series for the Edinburgh International Festival, presenting every aspect of the piping tradition in 13 concerts, linking music with Scottish history and culture. In 2005, he co-directed a six-part television series screened on RTE, BBC3 and ITV—“The Highland Sessions”—addressing the common language and musical traditions of Scotland and Ireland, which won the best documentary music award in Ireland.
Allan won the highest award in piping, The Clasp, at the Northern Meeting, two years running (1989 and 1990). He then followed his heart and developed a style of playing more in tune with the Gaelic culture of 1550-1750. His approach is infused with an insider’s ear for the fragile traces of historical continuity that survive within Gaelic-speaking communities, and he attempts to reverse the effects of post-Industrial sanitisation and cultural colonialism.
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