Fred Morrison
Events
Fred Morrison is widely regarded as one of the greatest Scottish pipers alive today. His performances on the Highland, bellows blown and uilleann pipes and on the low whistle have taken the world music scene by storm.
His approach is firmly rooted in the musical tradition of the Hebridean islands of Scotland but he constantly pushes the boundaries, creating a fresh new sound that is forever evolving. Fred began taking lessons from his father at the age of nine. His father, a noted piper, was from the small remote island of South Uist – which is to be found off the north-west coast of Scotland – a wild, beautiful place with a particularly rich tradition in piping
Although Morrison was born and raised near Glasgow, it’s the celebrated Gaelic piping tradition of his father’s native South Uist, in the outer Hebrides, that forms the bedrock of his intensely expressive, uniquely adventurous style. His outstanding technical prowess saw him winning many top competition prizes while still at school, meanwhile being inspired by pioneering acts like the Bothy Band and the Tannahill Weavers. Although his first-love instrument remains the great Highland bagpipes, over the years his mastery has expanded to encompass whistles, Scottish smallpipes, or reelpipes – Morrison being a pivotal populariser of this once-rare variety – and Irish uilleann pipes. He was also one of the first Scottish artists to forge dynamic links with his Celtic cousins in Brittany and north-west Spain, adding further to his repertoire of influences and tunes, and has long been renowned as an outstanding tune composer.
During the 1990s, as well as releasing his superb debut solo album The Broken Chanter, Morrison was a member of both the landmark Scottish supergroup Clan Alba and contemporary Celtic stars Capercaillie, featuring with the latter in the Hollywood movie Rob Roy. He has since pursued a diverse array of collaborative and solo projects, meanwhile releasing two more albums: the unanimously-lauded The Sound of the Sun, in 2000, and 2003’s dazzling duo set with Irish bouzouki ace Jamie McMenemy, Up South.
Recent career highlights range from his record-breaking seventh victory in the 2004 Macallan Trophy competition at Brittany’s Lorient Festival to the world première of his first orchestral composition Paracas: Rhapsody of the Gael – a 90-minute work performed by over 100 musicians – as the opening concert of Glasgow’s Celtic Connections festival in 2005. The following year saw the launch of Morrison’s very own signature instrument, the Fred Morrison Reelpipes, which have swiftly become a popular choice among today’s top players.
Morrison maintains a busy touring schedule, having settled into working with a hand-picked pool of leading instrumentalists, including Ed Boyd, John Joe Kelly, Steve Byrne, Paul Jennings and Matheu Watson. His current bluegrass project, meanwhile, has him more fired up than ever before – and given Morrison’s uniquely impassioned approach to music, that’s saying something. “The point I’ve reached now with my playing and my writing – it’s like everything’s just kind of at one,” he says. “I’ve never felt I was quite there with it before, but now I know where I’m at, I know what I want to do, and I know I can do it. I heard this Uist-Irish-bluegrass connection in my head, and I knew I could make it work.”