St. Kilda Tapes

Greetings, an invitation to a showing of St Kilda tapes. Regards, the other Ron

A  S P E C I A L   I N V I T A T I O N

 The Scotland Funds, the St. Andrew's Society of Vancouver,

and Alma Lee

 Invite You & A Guest

To Be Their Guests

 Thursday, April 24, 2008 at 6 pm

 The Caprice / 965-7 Granville Street

 For a Screening Of

 The St. Kilda Tapes

 And A Performance By Vocalist

 Alyth McCormack

 Fresh From Her Carnegie Hall New York Debut

 RSVP by return email or to kevin@publicityplus.ca

 The St. Kilda Tapes

On August 29, 1930, the last 36 inhabitants of Scotland's St. Kilda Island, one of the world's most remote human settlements, were evacuated, at their own request, to Morvern on the Scottish mainland, leaving behind a home and life that their ancestors had known for centuries.

 The Scottish Screen Archive has preserved deeply moving footage shot during this memorable departure.

 Using this material, and the voice of Norman Gillies, who participated in the evacuation as a five-year-old boy, filmakers Ewan and Alastair Meldrum have created a unique document that poses timeless questions: When you are forced or you choose to leave your home where does your journey stop? How do you know when you've arrived at your ultimate destination, and how do you balance what you have left behind with what you discover on your journey?

 A complex and subtle multi-media work, The St. Kilda Tapes features music and song by guitarist David Allison and well-known musicians and singers, including Ms. McCormack. The piece incorporates looping technology and experimentation with wonderful and distinctly non-Celtic instruments like the concert zither, Turkish saz and the Arabic oud.

 The St Kilda Tapes is a solo sister project to The Island Tapes.

 Alyth McCormack

Alyth was born and raised on the Island of Lewis of the north west coast of Scotland and after growing up within this culture and having being given the opportunity to perform since she was a nipper, she decided to hit the road, left home moved to the big city and began her singing education in earnest.

 She had a wonderful teacher, who gave her a great grounding and then the adventuring began. She toured in various bands and projects, Shine, Sunhoney throughout Germany, Spain, Italy, Estonia, North America, the Uk, Brazil, Ireland, Switzerland, Greece, Austria, Hungary, Norway & Sweden recorded with various artists, appearing on 16 albums to date, and in 2000 released her first solo CD An Iomall(The Edge) on Vertical records.

 "Alyth loves singing, and lets you know that without telling you. You can hear it in her voice. She may be from Lewis, sings (but not all exclusively) in Gaelic, and often performs with harp and fiddle - but she's not a folkie. Her musical education and influences are too wide to sit in that, or any other, ghetto, minimalists like Reich, the sweeping eclecticism of Adams, sophisticated rock, modal jazz and role models like June Tabor or Marta Sebestyen have taken her down a path where she can sing unaccompanied in a Hebridean hall one day and with a metropolitan fusion samba band the next.

 "She is at home on stage and brings to her music - whether with the close harmony vocalists in Shine or full jazz/rock rhythm section in Sunhoney - a still centre" (Norman Chambers / The List)

 Joining Ms. McCormack in Vancouver for this invitation-only performance will be Ewen Vernal from Capercaillie on bass, Jonny Hardie from Old Blind Dogs on fiddle and Briam Mcalpine form Unusual Suspects on keyboard.

 St. Kilda

An isolated archipelago 64 kilometres (40 mi) west-northwest of North Uist in the North Atlantic Ocean. It contains the westernmost islands of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. The largest island is Hirta, whose sea cliffs are the highest in the United Kingdom.

 The Gaelic-speaking population probably never exceeded 180 and was never more than 100 after 1851. Although St Kilda was permanently inhabited for at least two millennia, and despite the inhabitants' unique way of life, the entire population was evacuated in 1930.

 The only residents are now military personnel. The islands are administratively a part of the Comhairle nan Eilean Siar local authority area.

 Reference Links

www.myspace.com/thestkildatapes

www.myspace.com/alythspace