Brave New Music

GARY WEST is a senior lecturer in Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh. He is also an active traditional musician and teacher, and presents a weekly programme, Pipeline, on BBC Radio Scotland. Originally from Pitlochry in Perthshire, he played for many years with the innovative Vale of Atholl Pipe Band, winning the Scottish and European Championships. In his late teens, he moved sideways into the folk scene, playing, recording and touring with the bands Ceolbeg and Clan Alba, and becoming a founder member of the ceilidh band, Hugh MacDiarmid’s Haircut. He has performed on around 20 albums, including his debut solo release, The Islay Ball, and his most recent collaboration, Hinterlands, with harpist Wendy Stewart.

The legacy of one of Scotland’s most innovative and beloved musicians is to be celebrated with a new biography. MARK MACDOUGALL, The HeraldThis biography traces his story through personal struggles and artistic triumphs, and offers an assessment of his place in the pantheon of major Scottish artists. It is a story of resilience as well as innovation... GLASGOW LIFEA man who was arguably one of Scotland's greatest, most avant-garde contemporary composer musicians. SALLY McDONALD, The Sunday PostGary West marshals all this – and more – with considerable skill, alongside informed assessments of Bennett’s recordings. There is much about Bennett’s later years that is tragic, but Bennett himself was quite the mischievous sprite, full of humour, and what shines through above all is his determination to present the music he heard in his imagination to the very best standards. ROB ADAMS, UK Jazz NewsThere are times you feel you sitting next to Martyn as he is composing and that has got to be the ultimate accolade for a biography... This biography is a delight, it is intimate and personal yet expansive and contextual. JOHN SLAVIN, Bagpipe NewsWell written, exhaustive and evocative, this biography is a must-read for anyone interested in traditional Scottish music.SCOTTISH FIELDMartyn Bennett’s importance in the advancement of music can not be overstated. All art must evolve in order to survive. But the delicate balancing act between the past and the future needs a skilled artist to properly serve both sides. Martyn Bennett was such a figure. The world of contemporary folk would be the poorer without his contribution. Not only in Scotland and the UK, but internationally.The way he could advance this revered art form while remaining true to its roots is a story to inspire artists of all disciplines. His loss was a personal one to many who knew and loved this singular individual. But in the retelling of his remarkable story to future artists, our culture could be all the richer. PHILL JUPITUSMartyn Bennett was the most inspirational and gifted musician to come out of Scotland for generations. His vision took traditional music into a realm where angels fear to tread and created a sound that was unique and undeniably powerful. He was fearless and magnificent, an artist in the truest sense of the word - a lightning bolt of creative genius. It is vital that his story of courage and his musical legacy live on as an inspiration to future generations of musicians and artists and that is why the planned biography of him should be supported by all of us who feel deeply privileged to have known him. DAVID HAYMANMartyn Bennett was so important a figure in music here in Scotland that it is impossible to exaggerate either his cultural importance or the influence his work has had on the musical creativity of the next, and indeed the now, generation. Not just nationally, but in the sphere of world-music.His roots in indigenous Scottish music were lifelong, and went deep, from Gaelic big song to pibroch to the unaccompanied ballad-singing of the great traveller community with its rich mix of Scots vernaculars. His mother, Margaret Bennett, is a much loved and far renowned Gaelic singer, who worked in Edinburgh University’s School of Scottish Studies, that unique corner of academe with its important emphasis on the oral tradition. Martyn grew up with all the singers, musicians and poets arguing, laughing and singing round their fireside. He imbibed their culture - and the cultures of the visiting musicians, poets and folklorists from all over the world who frequented their home.At the very beginning of the 1990s Martyn was well known among his student contemporaries at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now the Conservatoire) as a very talented budding classical violinist. Who could have predicted his transformative discovery of Dance Culture - and the dreadlock? Or the cruel diagnosis of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma which so blighted the last years of his tragically short life, but never blunted his creative edge.Of course it’s the music, the glorious generosity of “fusion”, which is his legacy. All power to the pen of Martyn Bennett’s biographer.LIZ LOCHHEADThis guy is bloody great!Sean ConneryScots music has never sounded like this before. No music has ever sounded like this before.MOJOThere is no-one else on earth so modern and so ancient at the same time: so true to our roots and so free in creating new sounds.The ScotsmanHe was an enormously gifted, soulful, passionate, generous musician.PETER GABRIELA gentle and generous figure with a ready sense of humour.The TelegraphStar of the Celtic music scene with a unique pipes and beats sound.The GuardianGrit is Martyn Bennett's tour de force. No-one else welds the Scottish tradition to cutting edge electronica so well and here you couldn't slide an atom between the elements, so well are they interwoven. ... It's an astounding experience, simultaneously painful and up lifting. This is a man with a huge voice. BBCAn absorbing reconciliation of the raw and the cooked. The Independent (UK)