|
|
SHANNON is a seven member group who live in Poland but who will be at this year’s festival playing Scottish and Irish reels with melancholic cries from the pipes and exuberant fiddle playing. Each year, the Rainforest World Music Festival tries to walk the tightrope in having a fine balance between the bands that play raw and pure roots music, and the more world fusion bands. SHANNON will be a fine mix of the two as their sound is unmistakably Celtic but pumped up with the bass guitar and drums. There is something almost fey about celtic music – it is placating and soothing, almost evocative in the deft twists and turns of the melody. At the same time, there is also the side that is aggressive and hard edged with a blast of earthy humour. Marcin Ruminski is the leader and founder of the band. He plays the Highland bagpipes, the low whistle, tin whistle, accordean as well as being lead vocalist. Several forms of bagpipes are used in celtic music. The basic instrument has a bag of air, inflated by blowing through a blowpipe. Arm pressure on the bag sends air through a reed on a fingered chanter which makes the sound. The Scottish highland pipes are the loudest and showiest while the quieter uilleann pipes are more popular in Ireland. The whistles are some of the cheapest and the most simplistic of traditional instruments and yet, in the hands of a master, it can be a virtuostic tool. It is a metal tube, with six holes and a mouthpiece like a recorder, and a range of about two octaves. Another essential instrument is the bohdran which is an ancient goat-skinned frame drum and is the heartbeat of Irish music. It is played with a double headed stick called a beater. In SHANNON, this is handled by Marek Kwadrans. The bouzouki, played by Sebastian Bednarczyk, has Greek origins but is very often used in Scottish bands, just like the mandolin, cittern and the guitar. Bartosz Kondrat, Pawel Piórkowski are on lead and bass guitars respectively while the drums are played by Maciej Pancer. The Celts were a group of people that occupied lands stretching from the British Isles to Gallatia. History records that they might have come down from the Italian Alps. Diodorus, a Roman historian, describes them as “….Terrifying. They are very tall in stature, with ripling muscles under clear white skin. They look like wood-demons, their hair thick and shaggy like a horse's mane. The way they dress is astonishing: they wear brightly coloured and embroidered shirts, with trousers called bracae and cloaks fastened at the shoulder with a brooch. In battle, weird, discordant horns were sounded, they shout with deep and harsh voices, they beat their swords rhythmically against their shields…..”
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
[Home] [About RWMF] [Performers] [Programme] [Tickets] [Venue] [Practical Info] [Press Releases] [Volunteering] [Sponsors] [RWMF Archives] [Behind the Scene] [Contact Us] |
|
|
|
Copyright 2005 @ Sarawak Tourism Board |
