The Kinnaris Quintet

Preview Night at The Hub, Wednesday, 30/7/2025

The Kinnaris Quintet

‘Flashy fiddles fail to excite'!’ This was my conclusion after this rather odd opening concert of the Festival, labelled a preview night on the Wednesday before the Festival really opens - on Saturday morning at the Queens Hall, and on Saturday afternoon at the Usher Hall, with the epic eight hours of Taverner’s ‘The Veil of the Temple’. By contrast this was a very short concert by the Kinnaris Quintet a group of five young women musicians with three fiddles, a guitar and a mandolin, playing largely their own compositions.

What was odd about this concert was that the press were invited to this ‘preview’ concert for 7pm but the doors of the hall in the Hub didn’t open till 10 minutes before 8 and there was no one to welcome or greet us in the bar. So in the hall I expected a few words of introduction to the festival, a welcome to the concert from someone, maybe even Nicola Benedetti? We did get Nicola but only her recorded voice welcoming us and reminding us to switch off our mobile phones! 

The Kinnaris Quintet wandered on to the stage some of them flashily dressed in spangly tops others more modestly attired in traditional folk style. They have been a group since 2017 and comprise Jenn Butterworth, guitar, Aileen Reid, 5-string fiddle, Fiona MacAskill, fiddle, Laura-Beth Salter, mandolin, and Laura Wilkie, fiddle. They are all very skilled musicians; indeed Jenn Butterworth was the ‘Musician of the Year’ at the Scots Trad Music Contest in 2017 and is a very good singer. Sadly, there was no singing at this concert. Instead we got a group of tunes largely of their own composition, within the traditional framework, but often jazzed up with a beat to make them more modern.

They got a good response from the younger members of the audience who were clearly Kinnaris fans but the older members of the audience were less excited and one suggested perhaps a second more traditional group would have balanced the concert. I confess that I am a lover of more traditional music and in particular believe that folk songs are central to the folk process. So for me this was an underwhelming preview concert but in the words of another song “Things can only get better”!