Celtic Connections review: SCO with Paul Buchanan from Blue Nile, Aoife O'Donovan, Lau & Maeve Gilchrist

Bringing together a variety of different artists and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, this concert was more than the sum of its parts, writes Ken Walton

Paul Buchanan, Aoife O'Donovan, Lau & Maeve Gilchrist, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall ****

On one level this was a regular variety gig: a roll-out of distinctive spotlight acts from husky Blue Nile frontman Paul Buchanan and boundary-hopping traditional combo Lau to zingy Scots harp virtuoso Maeve Gilchrist and epic multi-styled American singer Aoife O’Donovan. On another, with heightened moments of cross-fertilisation and the binding omnipresence of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under Eric Jacobsen’s baton, the outcome exceeded the sum of its parts.

The SCO’s scene-setter, Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture, proved a bit of a damp squib but it was a momentary hiatus. Along came Gilchrist with her own composition, The Harpweaver, a feast of melancholic optimism propelled by her febrile dexterity, flashes of wild glissandi and, in Jon Hargreaves’ and Pippa Murphy’s orchestral arrangement, poignant moments of impressionistic reflection.

Lau took equal advantage of the orchestral resource to probe new potential in Riad, intensified laconic dissonances and spidery string atmospherics amplifying its fundamental organic allure. Inge Thompson and O’Donovan added vocal fill to Kris Drever’s soft-grained lilt in the ballad Cruel Brother, which evaporated magically.

Buchanan’s fans – audibly out in force – suddenly came alive for a typically lugubrious set, Donald Shaw adding sullen piano support to Buchanan’s trademark autumnal nostalgia in Mid Air, Let’s Go Out Tonight, and an especially plaintive Snow.

But it was O’Donovan’s America, Come – marking the struggle for Women’s Suffrage in the US – that made the biggest statement, symphonic in scope, heightened by the cumulative heart-warming hopefulness expressed through the young voices of Glasgow CREATE Chamber Choir.

To everyone’s delight, the entire company came together for Blue Nile’s 1990s Gospel anthem Happiness, not once but twice. Indecision over a final encore forced that hand, to no-one’s regret.