I can’t believe one year has passed and it is now nearly time for our Distil Residential! In 2002 thanks to the then Scottish Arts Council (SAC) and PRS Foundation we hosted our first residential. Dave Francis and I had an idea to make a National Scottish traditional music orchestra (or something like that) and we went to Nod Knowles – head of music at the SAC. He asked the question; what would this orchestra perform and we didn’t really know!
Together we came up with an idea for a place musicians could go and learn about composition and improvising and how to make new music using these skills. Of course trad musicians were composing lots of brilliant 16 bar tunes but we wanted to give them the skills to write longer pieces.
The model has barely changed over the years and all the professional traditional musicians that attend (all participants make their living from music) have a fabulous time learning and very importantly taking time out to think about their music (this doesn’t really happen in real life…). Creative Scotland have continued to fund Distil and we (and the very many participants) are very grateful. The next residential starts on 15th October in our usual New Lanark – our home since 2002.
This years workshop leaders are: Greg Lawson (violinist, composer), Mark Sanders (drummer and improviser) and Jim Sutherland (composer, folk musician). Participants are:
Alana MacInnes
Stuart MacPherson
Karen Marshalsay
Grant McFarlane
Jack Smedley
Ross Ainslie
Mairi MacKinnon
Sarah Hayes