25/01/2017 Burns Night at the Waterfront

Hello, I'm delighted you can be with us

to enjoy this concert of poetry, music and song,

as we celebrate the life and work of Robert Burns.

The Ulster Orchestra is taking centre stage this evening,

and among those appearing with them are...

# Awa' wi' your belles and your beauties... #

..Scots singer Emily Smith...

..the Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band...

# Will we never meet... #

..singing duo Sylvia Burnside and Alan McBride...

..Jamie McClennan...

..and the Markethill Dancers.

Welcome to...

APPLAUSE

Ladies and gentlemen,

she is regarded as one of the finest interpreters of traditional song

in these islands, so please give her a very warm Ulster welcome -

it's Scotland's Emily Smith.

APPLAUSE

# Ooh, ooh, ooh

# I once was a maid though I canna mind when

# Still my delight is in proper young men

# Some one of a troop of dragoons was my daddy

# Nae wonder I'm fond o' a young soldier laddie

# Singing fa, la, la, la

# La, la, la, la, laddie

# The first o' my loves was a swaggering blade

# To rattle the thundering drum was his trade

# His leg was sae tight and his cheek was sae ruddy

# Transported I was wi' my soldier laddie

# Singing fa, la, la, la

# La, la, la, la, laddie

# But the godly old chaplain left him in the lurch

# So the sword I forsook for the sake o' the church

# He ventured the soul and I risked the body

# 'Twas then I proved false to my young soldier laddie

# Singing fa, la, la, la

# La, la, la, la, laddie

# Full soon I grew sick o' my sanctified thoughts

# The regiment at large for a husband I got

# From the gilded spontoon to the fife I was ready

# I asked for nae mair than a young soldier laddie

# Oh, laddie

# Oh, laddie

# But the peace it reduced me to beg in despair

# Till I met my old boy at a Cunningham fair

# His rags regimental they fluttered sae gaudy

# Oh, my heart, it rejoiced at my soldier laddie

# Sing fa, la, la, la

# La, la, la, la, laddie

# And noo I hae lived and I know not how long

# Still I can join in a cup and a song

# And while with both hands I can hold the glass steady

# Here's to you, my love

# My ain soldier laddie

# Sing fa, la, la, la

# La, la, la, la, laddie

# Sing fa, la, la, la

# La, la, la, la, laddie

# Oh, laddie

# Oh, laddie

# Ooh, ooh

# Ooh, ooh

# Oh, laddie... #

SHE VOCALISES

# Oh, laddie

# Ooh, ooh, ooh. #

APPLAUSE

Emily, you're from the same part of the world as Burns -

Dumfries and Galloway.

Do you feel a connection?

Yeah, definitely.

I mean, as a child, we had a lot of Burns in school,

we learnt his poetry, we sang the songs,

you could enter competitions within the school, that kind of thing,

so you almost were a wee bit sickened of him

by the time you left primary school,

and me starting a career in traditional music,

the first songs that I learnt,

I ran as far away as I could from Burns' material -

I looked older, pre-Burns, or just something different,

different subject matter.

However, I'm born and brought up in Dumfries and Galloway,

and as an adult, and having moved back to live there,

I love the connection that I have with him,

I love that I grew up looking at the same landscapes that he travelled,

on his jobs as a tax collector,

I've been to visit Ellisland Farm just recently -

and it's just magical to sense he's still there in spirit,

and I think it's amazing how his legacy lives on.

# Lang hae we pairted been

# Lassie, my dearie

# Noo here we are all met again

# Lassie lie near me

# Near me, oh, near me

# Lassie, lie near me

# Lang hae you lain your lane

# Oh, lassie lie near me

# Oh, all the things that I hae endured

# Lassie, my dearie

# Here in you arms, oh, all is cured

# Lassie, lie near me

# Near me, oh, near me

# Lassie, lie near me

# Lang hae you lain your lane

# Oh, lassie lie near me

# Oh, aa the days that I've been away

# Lassie, my dearie

# I thoucht on you and oor bairns at play

# Oh, lassie lie near me

# Near me, oh, near me

# Lassie, lie near me

# Lang hae you lain your lane

# Oh, lassie lie near me

# And in the morning will come the sun

# Lassie, my dearie

# Until that hour let us hae oor fun

# Oh, lassie lie near me

# Near me, oh, near me

# Lassie, lie near me

# Lang hae you lain your lane

# Oh, lassie lie near me

# Oh, near me, oh, near me

# Lassie, lie near me

# Lang hae you lain your lane

# Oh, lassie lie near me

# Lassie, lie near me. #

APPLAUSE

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage Mr Robert Burns.

APPLAUSE

"It is a well-known historical fact

"that a great portion of the people of Ulster

"are descended from Scottish settlers.

"From the circumstances of our Scottish descent,

"we can appreciate the character

"and admire the genius and poetry of Burns

"almost as much as the natives of Scotland."

Do you know who wrote that?

No less than the Mayor of Belfast in 1844.

Now, he was clearly a man of very good judgment.

"The genius and poetry of Burns."

I like that.

It's wonderful to be here in Belfast

for a celebration of my life and birthday -

especially as, this year, the celebration is on the 21st,

which means I can hae a pairty here in Belfast tonight,

and yin in Scotland next weekend.

As you may have heard, I do enjoy a guid pairty.

Hm!

Historical records don't say whether I ever visited Belfast,

but given there's many a nicht I canna quite remember...

there's every possibility.

I do have many connections wi' Belfast, though.

Belfast, in 1787,

saw the first published editions of my works outside of Scotland.

This was printed after the Belfast News Letter

published a selection of my poetry a year earlier

under the pen name of The Ayrshire Ploughman.

A hundred years after my birth, in 1859,

a great celebration took place here in Belfast at the Corn Exchange.

My granddaughter Eliza and her daughter Martha

were the honoured guests.

It was nae accident that the people of Belfast and Ulster

took me to their hearts -

for the people of Ulster and the people of Scotland are kith and kin.

In 1960, another Irish paper, The Irish News,

published this poem.

"'Nights with Burns are all the fashion,'

"Said the host, 'our Province o'er

"'Bonnie Scotland is our passion

"'Ulster Scots we, to the core.'"

Hm.

Nearly 60 years later, I, Robert Burns,

am pleased to see that you still have the passion...

and I'm delighted to see that I'm still..

very much in fashion.

APPLAUSE

APPLAUSE

Sylvia and Alan, you'll be singing a beautiful song for us this evening -

Fare Thee Well Love.

It comes from Nova Scotia and The Rankin Family.

You're both solo singers -

but what is it about singing together in a duet

that makes it so special?

-We have a good rapport, you know?

-Yeah.

-And that means an awful lot.

And it's a shared experience, you know?

-Isn't that right?

-Yeah.

It takes some of the weight of a performance off just an individual,

and you get to kind of spread it across so that it becomes shared.

This particular song from The Rankin Family

was sang by a brother and sister,

and my sister Violet and I used to sing together years ago,

until she was involved with the Great Britain ladies' hockey team,

so she had to commit her time to training for the Olympics,

and I started singing by myself, and that's where it continued -

but this song takes me back to those days when, as a family,

we'd sit around the fire and sing and play music.

We were speaking earlier about how, you know, in life

you'll meet with numerous goodbyes - different kinds of goodbyes -

and some will have a more superficial, temporary level,

and some will be a wee bit deeper, and then, of course,

there's the final goodbye,

and this song - it could be any of those, really, couldn't it?

Because it just says, "Look,"

you know, "I'll drink to you, I'll sing songs about you,

"but at the end of the day,

"I'll always be with you if you just have my heart."

# Fare thee well, love

# Fare thee well, love

# Far away

# You must go

# Take your heart, love

# Take your heart, love

# Will we never meet

# Again no more?

# Far across, love

# Far across, love

# O'er the mountains

# And country wide

# Take my heart, love

# Take my heart, love

# Will we never meet

# Again no more?

BOTH: # So I'll drink today, love

# I'll sing to you, love

# In pauper's glory

# My time I'll bide

# No home or ties, love

# A restless rover

# If I can't have you

# By my side

# Oh, come back, love

# Oh, come back, love

# The sun and moon

# Refuse to shine

# And since I've gone, love

# Gone away, love

# This lonely girl's had

# No peace of mind

BOTH: # So I'll drink today, love

# I'll sing to you, love

# In pauper's glory

# My time I'll bide

# No home or ties, love

# A restless rover

# If I can't have you

# By my side

-# Fare thee well, love

-Fare thee well

-# Fare thee well, love

-Fare thee well

-# Far away

-Far away

-# You must go

-You must go

-# Take my heart, love

-Take my heart

-# Take your heart, love

-Take my heart

# Will we never meet

# Again no more?

# Where we'll never meet

# Again no more. #

APPLAUSE

Jamie, sounds very Scottish, but actually,

you're a very long way from your native home.

I am, I'm from New Zealand originally.

Came over about 20 years ago, close to.

That's why I've got quite a strong Scottish accent now,

you'll probably pick up on(!)

We're seeing you on stage tonight playing the fiddle and the guitar,

but you first started with the fiddle.

Why was that?

Well, fortunately, cos my dad had a folk club

and they helped run a folk festival,

we used to get people come and stay with us

and one was this fiddle player from Canada called Leo Ready

who used to come and play

and he used to play this one tune, The Four Poster Bed,

and you hit the fiddle with the bow four times

to show the four posts of the bed

and I just remember sitting there as a six-year-old going, "What?!

"How's he not breaking that?!

"I need to do that," so that totally inspired me.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

While Roving On A Winter's Night,

how did you first come across that song?

Well, that was a few years ago.

I was over here in Northern Ireland

to do some songs

for The Santer Sessions, a TV show,

and it was while we were here I heard a great American singer

and fiddle player called Lauren Rioux

and she sang the song on that episode

and when I listened to the lyrics,

I noticed that it was very close

to Burns' My Love Is Like A Red, Red Rose, the story of it,

so it's almost like a song that had travelled over to the States

and it had come back again

and I decided to learn it.

# While roving on a winter's night

# And drinking that good old wine

# Thinking about my own true love

# That broke this heart of mine

# She is just like the bud of a rose

# That blooms in the month of June

# She's like some musical instrument

# That has been lately tuned

# Perhaps a trip to some foreign land

# Over to France or Spain

# But if I go 10,000 miles

# I'm coming home again

# And who's going to shoe your pretty little feet?

# Who's going to glove your hands?

# Who's going to kiss your sweet, sweet lips

# Who's going to be your man?

# Well, I'll love you till the seas run dry

# And the rocks all melt in the sun

# I'll love you till the day I die

# Though you'll never be my own

# While roving on a winter's night

# And drinking that good old wine

# Thinking about my own true love

# That broke this heart of mine

# Thinking about my own true love

# That broke this heart of mine. #

APPLAUSE

Richard, you have amassed with Field Marshal Montgomery

so many trophies and 11 World Championship wins.

Do you ever sit back and think, "Whoa, how did I do this?"

Absolutely. When I started off,

I had a number of heroes in the pipe band world and one of them

would have been Pipe Major Ian McLellan from the Strathclyde Police

who won 12 World Championships and for me now to be one behind him

is just absolutely unbelievable.

To win it once for me was a dream come true, but to win it 11 times

is just an unbelievable experience when I sit back and look at it.

What do you think is the continuing appeal

of this international culture?

I think it's the music.

It's down to the music that's played by all the pipe bands,

traditional music played,

new compositions played, certainly at a top level,

cos everybody else takes their key to what to play from the top bands

and I think it's down to the standard of the music

that's being played.

And what music have you in store for us this evening?

Well, one of the sets that we're playing tonight starts off with

a slow air which we got from Brittany, it's called La Baum,

and then we're going into a traditional Scottish jig

written by Gordon Walker called The Fiddler's Rally.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Now, Robert Burns, we know he was a spontaneous man.

He was direct and he was sincere. He was also a true egalitarian.

His powerful song A Man's A Man For A' That

remains a potent rallying call against social and class inequality.

The sentiments it expresses are universal -

wealth, or lack of it,

and social class shouldn't be the measure of the man.

A man's character is his true pride o' worth

and, "The honest man, tho e'er sae poor

"Is king o' men for a' that."

Let us reflect on these words as we welcome to the stage

Robert Burns for the Address To The Haggis.

APPLAUSE

Thank you.

Good evening.

Allow me to mair informally introduce myself.

I am the poet Robert Burns.

GUFFAW FROM AUDIENCE, LAUGHTER

Indeed.

In 1787, on a visit tae Edinburgh,

I was first introduced tae what is now Scotland's national dish,

the haggis.

-So taken was I with the wonderful aroma...

-HE SNIFFS

..and fabulous taste

that I wrote my ain poem of thanks,

which I'd like to perform for you now,

my Address Tae The Haggis.

Ho-ho!

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face

Great chieftain o the puddin'-race!

Aboon them a' ye tak your place

Painch, tripe, or thairm

Weel are ye worthy o' a grace

As lang's my airm

The groaning trencher there ye fill

Your hurdies like a distant hill

Your pin wad help to mend a mill

In time o' need

While thro your pores the dews distil...

Mmm.

..like amber bead. Ho!

His knife see rustic labour dight

An' cut you up wi ready slight

Trenching your gushing entrails bright

Like onie ditch

And then, O what a glorious sight

-Warm-reekin'...

-HE SNIFFS

..rich

Then, horn for horn, they stretch an strive

Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive

Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve

Are bent like drums

The auld Guidman, maist like to rive...

HE BLOWS RASPBERRY, LAUGHTER

.."Bethankit" hums

Is there that owre his French ragout

Or olio that wad staw a sow

Or fricassee wad mak ye spew

Wi perfect scunner

Looks doon...

"Oh! Non, merci!"

..wi sneering, scornfu' view

On sic a dinner? Huh!

Poor devil! See him owre his trash

As feckless as a wither'd rash

His spindle shank a guid whip-lash

His nieve a nit

Thro bloody flood or field to dash

O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed

The trembling earth resounds his tread

Clap in his walie nieve a blade

He'll make it whissle

An legs an arms an heads will sned

Like taps o' thrissle

Ye Pow'rs, wha mak' mankind your care

And dish them out their bill o' fare

Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware

That jaups in luggies

But, if ye wish her gratefu' prayer

Gie her a Haggis.

APPLAUSE

# Adoon winding Nith I did wander

# To mark the sweet flowers as they spring

# Adoon winding Nith I did wander

# Of Phillis to muse and to sing

# Awa' wi' your belles and your beauties

# They never wi' her can compare

# Whaever has met wi' my Phillis

# Has met wi' the Queen o' the Fair

# The daisy amused my fond fancy

# So artless, so simple, so wild

# Thou emblem said I o' my Phillis

# For she is simplicity's child

# Awa' wi' your belles and your beauties

# They never wi' her can compare

# Whaever has met wi' my Phillis

# Has met wi' the Queen o the Fair

# Oh, the rose bud's the blush o' my charmer

# Her sweet balmy lip when 'tis pressed

# How fair and how pure is the lily

# But fairer and purer her breast

# Awa' wi' your belles and your beauties

# They never wi' her can compare

# Whaever has met wi' my Phillis

# Has met wi' the Queen o' the Fair

# Yon knot of gay flowers in the arbour

# They none wi' my Phillis can vie

# Her breath is the breath o' the woodbine

# Its dew drop o' diamond her eye

# Awa' wi' your belles and your beauties

# They never wi' her can compare

# Whaever has met wi' my Phillis

# Has met wi' the Queen o' the Fair

# Oooh

# Da-da da da-da da

# Ooh doo-doo da da-da da

# Oooh

# Her voice is the song o' the morning

# That wakes through the green spreading grove

# While Phebus peeps over the mountain

# On music and pleasure and love

# Awa' wi' your belles and your beauties

# They never wi' her can compare

# Whaever has met wi' my Phillis

# Has met wi' the Queen o' the Fair

# Oh, but beauty how frail and how fleeting

# The bloom o' a fine summer's day

# While worth in the mind o' my Phillis

# Will flourish without a decay

# Awa' wi' your belles and your beauties

# They never wi' her can compare

# Whaever has met wi' my Phillis

# Has met wi' the Queen o' the Fair

# Oooh

# Da-da da da-da da

# Ooh doo-doo da da-da da

# Oooh. #

APPLAUSE

Thank you.

APPLAUSE

AUDIENCE CLAP ALONG

APPLAUSE

Stalked by debt and illness,

Burns died at Dumfries on 21st July, 1796,

aged just 37.

His funeral was held on the same day his son Maxwell was born.

His passing was marked by William Wordsworth with these words...

I mourned with thousands, but as one

More deeply grieved, for he was gone

Whose light I hailed when first it shone

And showed my youth

How Verse may build a princely throne

On humble truth.

# Should auld acquaintance be forgot

# And never brought to mind

# Should auld acquaintance be forgot

# For auld lang syne

# For auld lang syne, my jo

# For auld lang syne

# We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet

# For auld lang syne

# And surely ye'll be my pint stoup

# And surely I'll be thine

# And we'll tak' a right gude-willie waught

# For auld lang syne

# For auld lang syne, my jo

# For auld lang syne

# We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet

# For auld lang syne

# Should auld acquaintance be forgot

# And never brought to mind

# Should auld acquaintance be forgot

# For auld lang syne

# For auld lang syne, my dear

# For auld lang syne

# We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet

# For auld lang syne

# So here's a hand, my trusty fiere

# And gie's a hand o' thine

# We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,

# For auld lang syne

# For auld lang syne, my dear

# For auld lang syne

# We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet

# For auld lang syne

# For auld lang syne, my dear

# For auld lang syne

# We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet

# For auld lang syne. #

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING