Karine Polwart at the Italian Chapel
A followup to "Italian Chapel and Saltfish Forty"
When she saw my post yesterday about the Italian Chapel on Orkney, Dorothy (more about Dorothy here) reminded me of a wonderful video that was made in 2013 of the great Scottish singer Karine Polwart singing “Freedom Come All Ye” by Hamish Henderson. The excellent description in the video’s notes tells how she and a group of great musicians and other artists involved in a project called "Sea Change" explored the landscapes, history and future of the Orkneys aboard The Swan, a beautifully restored Shetland “Fifie,” a type of sailboat commonly used by Scottish fishermen from about 1850 onwards.
The video notes also tell about Hamish Henderson, and in case you don’t have easy access to the notes, I’ll copy that part here: “The song was written in 1960 by Hamish Henderson, a passionate proponent of peace and international cooperation. Henderson was a leader of the post war Folk revival, and founder of The People's Festival (the forerunner of the Edinburgh Fringe) he was also a fluent Italian speaker.”
P.S. with Douglas’s permission, I added to yesterday’s post a photo of him happily playing for us with his two boys also on fiddle. I don’t seem to have a photo of his daughter singing and playing cello for us, but that was awesome too!
Enjoy!