Celtic Connections review: Solo Cissokho & Fidil, with Fatoumata Diawara & The Michael McGoldrick Quintet - St Andrew’s In The Square, Glasgow

THIS year’s Celtic Connections has seen a number of sometimes improbable-seeming cross-cultural collaborations, of which these were notably engaging examples, not least in terms of ecstatic audience response.

Opening the evening was flautist Michael McGoldrick and his quintet, joined by the young Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara, armed with an electric guitar and a huge smile.

They may only have met for rehearsals that day, but it all meshed surprisingly well, McGoldrick’s flute preluding a song with haunting lament phrases, or threading its way over Diawara’s rolling, West African guitar style while she sang with the persuasive lilt of birdsong. James Mackintosh, meanwhile, laid down a steady beat while Gerry O’Connor’s banjo appeared to revert with ease to its African roots.

Similarly personable was the powerful-voiced kora player Solo Cissokho, in the company of the inventive young Irish fiddle trio Fidil, who assured us, by way of introduction: “We’re from County Donegal and he’s from County Senegal.” The splendidly turbaned Cissokho, from a griot minstrel dynasty, looked delightedly at home as he plucked cascades of notes from his harp-lute.

There were some full tilt Donegal reels, but the show-stopper was Solo’s solo, one might say, as he built up phrases, using a seemingly unfeasible number of fingers, into a hypnotic rhythm, then sang over it and produced dazzling bursts of improvisation.

Rating: ****