The 19th Shetland Accordion and Fiddle Festival was held between Thursday 12th and Monday 16th October 2006 and the Craigellachie Band were invited as one of six visiting dance bands having first performed as a concert act two years previous.

It was with much excitement that our party of eight assembled at midday on Wednesday at Heathrow for the flight up to Aberdeen – four members of the band Ian and Judith Muir, Keith Anderson and Graham Hamilton plus Caroline and James Hamilton, Brendan Kenny and Sonia King. Sadly, Brenda de Souza, our other fiddle player, had to pull out at the last moment due to a serious illness in her family. The final member of the band, John Browne, was flying from Manchester and would join us at Aberdeen for the last leg to Sumburgh airport on the southernmost tip of Shetland.

However, things did not go as planned and cancellations and delays meant we missed the connection, had to stay in a hotel for the night in Aberdeen and flew to Shetland via Orkney the following morning. Taxis failing to appear further added to the stress levels and it was a slightly less ebullient party that finally arrived in Lerwick at lunchtime on Thursday just as the festival was starting.

The festival is based round the Islesburgh Community Centre in the middle of Lerwick, a superb venue that boasts, in addition to the main function hall, a café, restaurant, a bar (open all hours!), a foyer for informal chats and meetings and three session rooms that are used by any number of musicians to have a tune. Just wandering between the rooms, at any time of the day or night, one gets a sense of the dazzling quality of musicians, both visiting and indigenous, that characterise the festival, and this even before attending any of the scheduled events.

These start on Thursday lunchtime with the Opening concert, which, due to our travel problems, we missed altogether. On both Thursday and Friday evenings there are events at various locations around the islands. These all take the same format, a concert of 6 or 7 acts each playing for about 20 minutes followed by a couple of hours of dancing to the featured dance band. The concerts all offer a mixture of artistes from Shetland and overseas - this year Scotland, England, Ireland, Norway and Hungary were all represented. All acts are based around the accordion and/or fiddle and a fine balance of the dance and folk music from all these cultures keep the packed halls entertained and tapping their feet.

After a 1am finish you’d think people would be away to their beds but no! Most musicians and many dancers reassemble at the Islesburgh where informal dance sessions in the main hall keep people dancing and listening until the not-so-wee hours of the morning. Bands are put together spontaneously from the available musicians - at one stage I found myself drumming with accordionists Robert Whitehead from Newcastle and Nicol MacLaren from Blairgowrie, fiddler Fiona Driver from Orkney and pianist Martin Henderson from Shetland – how’s that for geographical diversity?

The entertainment continues on Saturday with the Youth Concert at noon (followed by more session dancing). The Youth Concert is extremely popular with seats being filled well before the start of the show. There is no shortage of acts as a constant stream of young musicians appears on stage. The musical standard is exceptionally high and it is re-assuring to know that traditional music has a secure future, in Shetland at least. The stars of the show were the Callum Nicolson Trio - Callum (age 11) on accordion, Matthew Scollay (10) on piano and Joe Hunter (9) on drums whose sound would bear comparison with any adult band and whose talent is way beyond their years!

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