by Runs Sept. 26-30th.
Musician Colin Grant has teamed up with arranger and producer Scott MacMillan for a new project. They released their debut duo recording “Good2Go,” on July 15th, at the Normaway Inn in Margaree.
The album was recorded at FMP Matrix in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia by Scott Ferguson with Jennyfer Brickenden as executive producer. The recording features 15 tracks of acoustic instrumental medleys, including several of Macmillan’s and Grant’s original compositions arranged with traditional and contemporary tunes from Cape Breton, Scotland, Ireland, and beyond.
In July of 2015, the pair sat down at Macmillan’s home in Brook Village and began compiling new and old tunes from their collective traditional and original repertoires. Until that time, they had performed off-the-cuff performances together in venues ranging from the Doryman Tavern in Cheticamp to Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow. Tunes from Scott’s tunebook “Scoobie Tunes” which hadn’t yet seen action were spun into classical, jazz, funk, rock, and blues directions. While the resulting album Good2Go follows a traditional music path of tunes combined into medleys, the musical interplay between the two musicians speaks to the experience, chops, and element of good-old belly rubbing humour that keeps the tunes on a fun, lively path.
Scott Macmillan is a musical powerhouse. A musician, composer, arranger, conductor you name it, he is a shaping force of music in this country. He is at home with the Celtic traditions of our province as he is with contemporary jazz, blues or avant-garde.Scott has been around the world, on stages from Carnegie Hall in New York to conducting full symphony orchestras across Canada.
Grant grew up in Toronto with Nova Scotia-born parents, and studied Cape Breton fiddling with Sandy MacIntyre in Ontario as well as at the Gaelic College in St. Ann’s before his family returned to the province when he was 14.
Although he’s not of French descent, Grant became fascinated with Acadian folk music while in French immersion and spent four years getting a BA-BEd at Universite Sainte-Anne in Church Point. Then came a three-month residence in France and a summer in Cheticamp, soaking up Acadian culture from the roots to the branches.
Colin is described as hard-driving but clean, lively and passionate, traditional yet original; Colin Grant’s fiddle playing has stepped to the forefront of the East Coast traditional music scene – and people are sitting up and taking notice. Although most at home with traditional Cape Breton fiddle music, his versatility as both a lead and side musician has given him experiences in a variety of traditional styles, in addition to folk, rock and country genres. Besides having received an ECMA nomination for Roots / Traditional Solo Album of the Year for his self-titled debut album, Grant currently performs solo along with
