Breabach, Edinburgh International Festival review – 'Vivid instrumental colours'

The Highland folk quintet Breabach provided a spirited “preview night” for the Edinburgh International Festival’s series of informal concerts at the Hub. Amid the venue’s Harlequinesque spangling, they generated vivid instrumental colours of their own, between them playing Highland pipes, whistles, fiddle, bouzouki, guitar and double bass.

Their opening Oban Ball set the tone with nimble, tightly arranged reels, Megan Henderson’s fiddle at times sounding an octave below Conal McDonagh’s pipes, to dramatic effect. Henderson’s light, sweet vocals occasionally risked obscuring by the string accompaniment in the song Eadar an Dà Bhràigh, in praise of la famously rugged landscape, but shone in the plaintive Òran Bhràigh Rùsgaich, written by a city-dwelling Highlander yearning for his native braes.

Recent compositions included singer-guitarist Ewan Robertson’s elegant song Birds of Passage, evoking migrants “on wings of grace”, while the gently ambulatory Last March commemorated a warmly regarded Cape Breton piper before snapping into two Hebridean reels, with piper-bouzouki-player Calum MacCrimmon providing a quick burst of step-dancing before taking up the pipes alongside McDonagh for a racy finish.

Their loudly demanded encore was a suitably vigorous rendition of the reel Good Drying, twin pipes and fiddle in tight unison.