Content area
Full Text
WE'VE all heard the cliches about the vicar's daughter, but whatever became of the pipe major's son? In the case of Finlay MacDonald, son of Pipe Major Iain MacDonald, rebellion was played out on the football pitch.
"I'd started to learn the pipes," he says, "but I wanted to play football, so I chucked it. But then, when I was about 11 or 12, I started realising that people my age who were in a band were going to Galicia [a Celtic-leaning region of northwest Spain] for weekends, or making good money playing at weddings, so I thought - wait a minute " Now 24, MacDonald is one of Scotland's hottest young pipers, with a Celtic Connections New Voices commission due to be unveiled in a week's time. It's a 40-minute piece divided into six sections. MacDonald himself will play various pipes and flute, accompanied by seven other pipers and four backing musicians. He hasn't hit on a title just yet, but "most of it's kind of upbeat", he says. "Contemporary piping sounds; contemporary accompaniments; influences from Galicia, Breton influences, stuff from jazz, folk, soul and taking harmonies just a wee...