Review: Savourna Stevenson & Friends: 50th Birthday Concert/Litha - National Piping Centre, Glasgow

IT MIGHT not sound the most auspicious of opening gambits, from Litha’s Aaron Jones – “If anybody’s a bit confused about tonight’s concert: join the club” – reflecting a somewhat inauspicious last-minute guddle over venue and line-up changes.

But everything panned out very happily in the end, as Litha (formerly known as 2Duos) combined the launch of their second album, Dancing of the Light, with Celtic Connections’ celebration of harpist Savourna Stevenson’s half-century.

A Scottish/German quartet is hardly an obvious commercial proposition, and the combination of Jones (bouzouki/vocals), his regular duo partner Claire Mann (fiddle/flute/vocals), Gudrun Walther (vocals/fiddle/accordion) and Jürgen Treyz (guitar/lap steel) resounded with labour-of-love rapport, in a superbly varied set that ranged from Bavarian beer-drinking tunes to Karine Polwart’s heartbreaking Bosnian war lament, Waterlily.

Stevenson may have been selective in the friends she invited onstage – double bass legend Danny Thompson and the Edinburgh Quartet – but the audience was stuffed with them.

Beginning with her classic opening tune from 1990’s seminal Tweed Journey album, The Source, she touched base with most of her globe-spanning influences, magically complemented by Thompson’s uniquely simpatico playing, while the gorgeously enriched Quintet reflected inspirations including Gershwin, French Impressionism and Thompson himself.

RATING: ****