More »
University Communications

What Musical Traditions Did Scottish Highlanders Bring to America? Modlin Center Concert Will Show You

September 17, 2003

Bagpipers will play a prominent role, of course. But fiddle players, singers, step dancers and story tellers also will help tell the tale of Scottish Highlander immigrants to North America in a concert at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 7 at the Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Richmond.

The performers will include:

  • Margaret Bennett, an internationally renowned singer, storyteller and folklorist from Scotland. She will sing songs and tell stories linking the Highlands with North America.
  • John Shaw, a pioneering scholar of the Cape Breton oral tradition. Shaw, who teaches at the School of Scottish Studies at Edinburgh University, will tell stories of Highland immigrants and their culture flourishing in the New World.
  • Bridget Boswell and the Richmond Highlanders. Boswell and members of her troupe, who opened for the popular Celtic rock band Seven Nations in December 2001, will perform Highland dance.
  • Father Angus Morris, who will play the fiddle and step dance to Gaelic mouth music. His latest Rounder Records album is "Traditional Fiddle Music of Cape Breton: Mabou Coal Mines."

And what about bagpipers? William Caudill, director of the Scottish Heritage Center and instructor of the College Pipe Band at St. Andrews Presbyterian College in Laurinburg, N.C., will play the Highland bagpipe.

Allan MacDonald, one of the foremost authorities on Highland music in Scotland, also will play the bagpipe, as well as numerous other instruments.

The concert is part of a conference "Highland Settlers: Scottish Highland Immigrants in North America," Nov. 6-8.

For tickets, call the box office at (804) 289-8980.