Top year for Lismore’s Taproot festival 2019
Taproot 2019, Lismore’s Music and Literature Festival, was blessed with great weather and wonderful performances.
For a festival which lasted three days (and a bit) the programme was packed not just with music, literature, film and talks, but with informative and well-attended island walks, and Lismore-made crafts.
The festival ran from September 19-22, opening with Lismore Lumiere’s showing of Dirt Road to Lafayette, the film of James Kelman’s book which was a feature of Taproot 2017.
Several visiting authors appeared, including Norman Bissell with his book Barnhill – A Novel, based on George Orwell’s time on the island of Jura. Helen Witcher, introduced her book Madame Scotia, Madam Scrap, the story of her aunt Héloïse Russell-Fergusson. Gerda Stevenson spoke about Quines, a collection of odes to Scottish women of all eras, ages and classes, all of whom had achieved invisibility, and Priscilla Morris introduced her novel, The Painter of Bridges, based on her family’s experience of the Seige of Sarajevo in 1992.
Music was varied. Mairi Campbell gave a moving and often amusing tale of her adventures with Auld Lang Syne. Iona Sound, a trio from Ireland, explored and interpreted folk material connecting Ireland, Scotland and Scandinavia. The final concert was Bach o’ Beyond, in which Findlay Hay, on classical guitar, and Mairi Campbell, on viola, played Bach and more, finishing with Caledonia which delighted the audience who were eager to join in.
Leslie Riddoch screened her film of the Faroes which she sees as a possible inspiration for an independent Scotland.
Mary MacDougall and Bob Hay led island walks and Lismore crafters Hazel MacCormick, Roxanne Prando and Erik Tovarrson oftered a variety of handmade goods.
Centrepiece of the festival was a ceilidh when resident Lismore artists performed.
The ceilidh was a preview of the CD Sounds from the Great Garden, which the very talented David Maddox has recorded and Katy Crossan has assembled. It is due out before Christmas 2019.
Thank went to Jennifer Baker and the many volunteers – too many to list – who ensured the festival’s success.