Hanneke Cassel

Highland Dance Boston

Maeve Gilchrist

The Stuart Highlanders Pipe Band

RSCDS Boston Branch Demonstration Team

Our 18th annual celebration of Scottish music and dance takes us back to our Highland roots. In the Scottish, as in few other traditions, dance and music are intimately intertwined; this concert explores that synergy in every beat of the music and every step of the dances!

The Performers

Hanneke Cassel

The Boston Globe describes Hanneke Cassel's fiddle playing as "Exuberant and rhythmic, somehow both wild and innocent, delivered with captivating melodic clarity and an irresistible playfulness." According to Matt Glaser, head of the String Fiddle department at Berklee College of Music, “Hanneke Cassel really knows what she wants musically, and . . . she lets us share in her vision of a beautiful world of the violin.” Such charismatic fiddling has brought this native Oregonian many honors and awards. She is the 1997 U.S. National Scottish Fiddle Champion and was nominated in 2006 for a Boston Music Award (Best Folk Act). Hanneke holds a Bachelors of Music in Violin Performance from Berklee College of Music, where she won the Music String Award in 1998. She also won first place in the instrumental category in 2008 USA Songwriting Contest. She has performed and taught across North America, Europe, New Zealand, Australia, and China.

Hanneke’s solo CDs include My Joy, Silver, Some Melodious Sonnet, Many Happy Returns (with pianist Dave Wiesler) and Halali (with Laura Cortese and Lissa Schneckenberger, aka Halali). Her latest release, For Reasons Unseen (2009), features an all-star cast of musicians--including Alasdair Fraser, Natalie Haas, Rushad Eggleston, Casey Driessen, Brittany Haas, Keith Murphy, and Aoife O'Donovan. Influences from Scotland to China, along with grooves and musical innovations from the hip Boston bluegrass/Americana scene, fuse together to create a uniquely American approach to Scottish music. She creates sounds on the cutting edge of acoustic music, while retaining the integrity and soul of the Scottish tradition.

In addition to her solo concerts, Hanneke tours regularly with Baroque/Celtic group Ensemble Galilei, and has performed with the Cathie Ryan Band, Cherish the Ladies, Alasdair Fraser, and Matt Glaser and the Wayfaring Strangers. She is an active member of Boston-based band Childsplay (featuring 20+ fiddles made by Bob Childs) and co-founder (with Laura Cortese and Lissa Schneckenburger) of Celtic chick band Halali. She teaches regularly at Alasdair Fraser’s Valley of the Moon and Sierra Fiddle Camps, Boston Harbor Fiddle Camp, and the Club Passim School of Music. Hanneke's fiddling has graced the stages of the Boston Hatch Shell (performing with Joey McIntyre of New Kids on the Block), Boston's Symphony Hall (opening for Judy Collins), Mountain Stage, The Plaza Hotel, and Lincoln Center. Hanneke has appeared in our concert several times in the past, and she always leaves us wanting more!

Maeve Gilchrist

According to Dirty Linen, "Maeve Gilchrist is a phenomenal harp player who can make her instrument ring with unparalleled purity.” As the cover of her recent album suggests, “As the boundaries that separate the age-old and emerging cultures of our world seem to meld and coalesce, there are musicians who rely on what has gone before them to craft entirely new styles of music that are . . . , in essence, newly created genres which raise the bar for generations of artists to come.”

Maeve was born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland. Daughter to an Irish mother and Scottish father, she grew up immersed in traditional folk music. At an early age Maeve was accepted into the City of Edinburgh Music School, where she spent seven years studying classical piano, clarsach (Celtic harp) and vocals. From her early teens, Maeve was an in-demand member of the traditional music scene in Scotland where she performed at events such as the opening of the Scottish Parliament, the Celtic Connections Festival and the International Edinburgh Harp Festival. At seventeen Maeve received a full scholarship from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she studied jazz and world music, alongside a colorful career as a professional musician and teacher.

Recent performance highlights include the Tanglewood Jazz Festival, the World Harp Congress (Netherlands), Celtic Connections Festival (Scotland), the Edinburgh International Jazz Festival and  the ICONS Irish Festival. She has collaborated with some of the most celebrated contemporary musicians on the scene today, Darol Anger, Vardan Ovsepian, the Unusual Suspects, Kathy Mattea, Esperanza Spalding, and Martyn Bennett. Her debut CD Reaching Me was released in 2006 to international acclaim, and she released her second album Song of Delight on Adventure Music Records in 2011.  Maeve is currently based in Boston. She tours regularly with Scottish bassist Aidan O’Donnell, fusing her Scottish roots with the colors and freedoms of jazz to produce a fresh and unique new sound. We are delighted to welcome Maeve to her debut RSCDS concert appearance!

The Stuart Highlanders Pipe Band

The Stuart Highlanders are the premier pipe band organization in New England, with an active roster of more than 50 players. The band fields competitive bands in grades 2 and 4 of the EUSPBA, led by Pipe Major Adam Holdaway and Drum Sergeant Scott Armit, and Pipe Major Matthew Phelps and Drum Sergeant Stewart Marshall, respectively.
 
The band was founded in 1964 by parishioners from the First Parish Church in Bedford, Massachusetts, after the minister suggested that men of the parish start a musical group. They intended to form a banjo band but had difficulty finding an instructor. Parishioner John Autry, being of Scottish heritage, suggested that they learn the bagpipes instead, and Archie MacLeod agreed to teach them. Born in Connecticut but raised in Johnstone, Scotland, Archie had played the pipes since the age of eight and served as pipe major to both the Caledonia and the Clan Sutherland pipe bands.

Since the band was initially outfitted with the Royal Stuart tartan kilts (obtained at surplus from the Scottish regiments of the British army), it adopted the name The Stuart Highlanders Regimental Pipes and Drums. The name was changed to the Stuart Highlanders Pipe Band in the 1980's, when the band stopped wearing the regimental style uniform, which included horsehair sporrans and spats. The Latin motto on the band's cap badge, Vince Aut Morire--"Victory or Death"-- was taken from the town of Bedford's flag. Carried by the minutemen at the Battle of the Old North Bridge, it is the oldest flag in the United States. The band displays the flag's motto as a tribute to its Bedford roots. The Boston Branch is delighted to welcome a representative mini-version of the Stuart Highlanders to our 2011 concert. The roof in the Museum auditorium may be a little higher when they have finished playing for us!

Highland Dance Boston

Founded by Robert McOwen and Karen Campbell Mahoney in 2002, Highland Dance Boston is a performing company that specializes in the traditional and contemporary dances of Scotland. The company includes competitive Highland dancers, teachers of Scottish dance, and musicians. Its repertoire includes traditional Highland and step dances, as well as original choreographed pieces. The group has performed at the New England Folk Festival, the New Hampshire Highland Games, the Gaelic Roots festival, at Burns Nights in various cities, and during the Opening Ceremonies of the World Curling Championships in Lowell, MA. They have also hosted several Scottish dance and music concerts; the most recent in 2010 featured Hanneke Cassel and new choreographies to several of her musical compositions. Whether performing traditional dances or their own inventive explorations in the Scottish style, they are a treat for the eyes—and (when hard shoe is involved) the ears!

The Demonstration Team of the RSCDS, Boston Branch

The Branch Demonstration Team, under the direction of Andrea Taylor-Blenis with the administrative help of Karen Sollins, dances at private celebrations, festivals, and town fairs around New England. It performs at the New Hampshire Highland Games, the New England Folk Festival, the Boston Celtic Music Festival, as well as at our November concert. Its goal is to present original medleys of traditional dances, choreographed for energy, elegance, and audience appeal and to encourage others to share the joy of Scottish country dancing.

Robert McOwen, Artistic Director

Robert McOwen began Scottish country and Highland dancing in Berkeley, California in 1973. He received his Teaching Certificate for country dancing in 1980 and has been a member of the Scottish Dance Teacher's Alliance (for Highland) since 1987. Robert has taught at country dance workshops around the world and has competed in and performed at various Highland events, including Bonnie Rideout's "Scottish Christmas" Tour 1999-2005. In 2002, he and Karen Mahoney formed Highland Dance Boston, a performing company. Robert has served many times as artistic director of this concert and of its predecessor, the Burns Night concerts with Jean Redpath and Alasdair Fraser in Sanders Theatre. A bassist and guitarist, Robert has played and recorded with the Berkeley Scottish Players, Tullochgorum, Pipes Awa', Muckle Carffufle, and Sprig of Ivy. When not involved with all things Scottish, Robert is Professor of Mathematics at Northeastern University.

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