As well as being a talented piper (Highland, Border and Small pipes), Fraser Fifield is a stunning whistle and saxophone player. He is also a noted composer having been commissioned by BBC/Discovery's Natural World to provide music for the documentary, 'Otters in the Stream of Life'.
Born in 1976, he started piping aged 9, and the whistle and saxophone soon after. He studied at the RSAMD, Glasgow.
He has played with Wolfstone, Old Blind Dogs (with whom he recorded a CD), Bag O' Cats, The Mick West Band and now with Salsa Celtica. With Salsa Celtica, Fraser has recorded and travelled widely, headlining prestigious festivals such as Celtic Connections, Cambridge Folk Festival, New York Lincoln Centre, WOMAD, Singapore Latin Festival and the Ottowa Jazz Festival.
Fraser recorded this, his first solo CD, 'Honest Water', in his own studio, and released it on his own label, 'Tanar Records'.
"The saxophonist, whistle player and piper with Salsa Celtica and formerly of Old Blind Dogs steps out on his own and reveals himself as, for the most part, a one-man band. And it's some band. Multi-tracking saxophone sections and choruses of whistles as well as keyboards, percussion, various bagpipes, and clarinet alongside tremendously creative solo playing, Fifield comes over as Ormiston's contemporary answer to Storm-era Moving Hearts and dispels any fears of technological suffocation or overkill. Composed, constructed, and played with skill and ranging from Lament's deeply felt Highland longing to Horo's East European gambolling with African hi-life guitar (courtesy of Graeme Stephen), this is music with heart, emotion, and tunes that the "repeat play" button was designed for."
The Herald
"This young piper has acquired a unique place on the Scottish folk scene by translating the music of his first instrument to the soprano saxophone."
Inverness Courier |
