SCO & Julie Fowlis, Celtic Connections Glasgow review: 'a concert of two halves'
There’s no doubting the purity and richness of Julie Fowlis’s singing, but it was the energy of the Máirtín O'Connor creations that opened this concert which stuck in the memory, writes David Kettle
SCO with Julie Fowlis, Éamon Doorley, Zoë Conway & John McIntyre and Máirtín O'Connor, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall ★★★★
If Storm Éowyn hadn’t gusted its way across Scotland in early 2025, we’d have heard this collaboration between Julie Fowlis and Máirtín O’Connor (plus their respective bands) and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra at last year’s Celtic Connections. Was it worth the wait? The performers seemed to think so, and judging by both halves’ rapturous receptions, so did the audience.
Indeed, it was very much a concert of two halves, even if their two complementary sets might have felt like they were the wrong way round (despite Fowlis’s undoubted pulling power as headliner). It was O’Connor’s opening set that really injected energy into the evening, and not only through the accordionist and composer’s droll introductions.
Joined by a quintet of regular collaborators – and propelled along by bodhrán player Jimmy Higgins’s nimble rhythms – O’Connor conjured a beautifully buoyant, zippy collection of pieces as a lead-up to his own The Mighty Ocean, a full-blown suite for his ensemble plus orchestral strings, commissioned by the European Conference on Dolphins and Whales held in Galway, to remind us of our responsibilities to the water around us. It was a thoroughly convincing achievement, melding memorable Irish tunes together into a rich and evocative larger work, by turns thoughtful and joyful, and with O’Connor himself offering a persuasive impression of the tide on shingle with the gentle breathing of his accordion.
If it was just the SCO’s strings on stage before the interval, the full orchestra was put to strong use in the songs by Julie Fowlis and band – most exuberantly in the sonic grandeur of their opening number, which put SCO percussionist Louise Lewis Goodwin through her paces across timpani and several other instruments. There’s no doubting the uncanny purity and richness of Fowlis’s liquid singing, nor the lighter, brighter tones of her colleague Zoë Conway. But despite their few upbeat numbers, it felt like a surprisingly sombre set – and it was the freewheeling energy of O’Connor’s earlier creations that stuck in the memory.
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