Book Description

Voicing Scotland takes the reader on a discovery tour through Scotland's traditional music and song culture, past and present. West unravels the strings that link many of our contemporary musicians, singers and poets with those of the past, offering up to our ears these voices which deserve to be more loudly heard. What do they say to us in the 21st Century? What is the role of tradition in the contemporary world? Can there be a folk culture in the digital age? What next for the traditional arts? REVIEWS Can folk stay true to tradition and still be genuinely contemporary? Can its pride in place counter globalisation- without collapsing into narrow nationalism? The answer for, Gary West, is a resounding Yes. SCOTSMAN Voicing Scotland...is an engrossing assessment of where Scottish Traditional Music standsl, at a time of resonant political developments in the nation's history but also of globalisation and the threat of cultural homogenisation in todays 'liquid society'. SCOTSMAN