Friday 18-09-2020 - 14:45

 

One of the stars of the HISA Trad Fest, Emilia Marienfeld, from the Isle of Foehr on the west coast of Germany, studies traditional music at #ThinkUHI. As part of HISA's online celebration of female musicians from across the Highlands and Islands, Emilia spoke to HISA President, Florence Jansen about her recent opportunities and projects, such as playing Celtic Connections, learning Gaelic, and digging deep into the rich Gaelic culture.

 

Flo: Hello how are you? Thank you for making the time today, Emilia. Tell me a little bit about why you chose to study with UHI?

 

Emilia: Yeah, no worries, thank you for having me, it’s really great. I’m on the music course, the BA Applied Music course in my second year now. And I was always thinking about studying music, but I was never really sure what I was going to do. Would it be in Scotland? Would it be in Germany, where I’m from. Or what would it be. So I came to Scotland first as an aupair after school and in that time I had time to see what universities have music courses. And I could actually go to the universities and have a look at what their program offers.So I came in touch with UHI through actually being a graduate, a musician and I listened to his music a lot and then I read somewhere that he had actually studied at UHI. And I thought, that sounds very interesting, I’ll have a look at that university because I hadn’t heard of UHI before. And I checked it out and it all sounded so amazing and I really like the blended learning experience with online and face-to-face. So yeah, I read a lot about it and heard a lot about other people who study there and that’s why I went to UHI.

 

Flo: That sounds brilliant, and it’s always great to see how the alumni and peer support is working as well. Can you tell us a little more about your student experience, especially with blended learning because it’s a bit of a hot topic for this year as well.

 

Emilia: Yes especially in the music world, we do face to face more than you do online to be honest, but that’s my own opinion. But it’s not like you can’t do it at the moment and I think that UHI is so well prepared. And they actually have a very good experience of doing it online, so I don’t think there’s much to change for them. But we had a residency last week for example and normally we’d meet in Inverness and have a lot of music the whole week and it would be a very week, but obviously that doesn’t happen. Nevertheless we had a great weekend, everyone did it from their homes so we still did our work, we still worked on music. I mean it was harder to play music with each other, obviously it’s easier when you’re in the room together, but still for the circumstances we managed really well. And I have such a, I had my first year on Uist which was a lot of face-to-face stuff like my lessons and I had people to make music with. So, I’m very happy about my first year and there are so many amazing people and Uist in general, I’m sure it’s the same as Lewis, just a great community. And you just feel very welcome and it just feels very nice. To study in such a unique place. But for now I'm just really excited for this year because it’s going to be very different, but as I said, I think UHI is prepared for that and I think it’s going to be an exciting process to see how it’s going to work, also with the music. So yes, really excited for this year in general.

 

Flo: Absolutely agreed and it is very different to study in such a small community, in comparison to the normal student experience. A little bit about the set you’re about to play for the hisa trad festival, just tell us a little bit about why you chose the particular songs.

 

Emilia: So, yeah, I prepared three sets. One of them is actually called Tom’s waltz and I wrote it myself and I wrote it actually for a piping teacher. I’m not a piper but my parents are, so we’ve got some friends from Scotland who come over. And there’s one teacher who I really admire and he’s just a great musician and a very down-to-earth normal person and he’s just so brilliant, such a brilliant musician. And I thought it might be a nice thing to write just a wee tune for him, so that’s what I did. And I played that actually with a friend of mine who is a trumpet player who just started the course, which is a funny thing because she visited me in Uist and she was just so amazed by UHI and by all of that, that she just applied! She just started this year, so it’s actually really great playing that with her. And then I play another set with two reels, one of them is an Irish reel and the other one is a Canadian one. And I think that Irish one is one of those lockdown tunes to me, I’ve discovered that learning tunes over lockdown has been a very good thing for me. A very good thing to do, a very productive thing to do. So that’s one of the tunes that I really enjoyed playing. I just learned it recently and the Canadian one is a, I just really admire the culture of Great Britain over in Canada and they’ve got a lot of similarities to Scotland. That’s what I really like and that’s why I play those two. And the last one is just a typical set. I start with a slow one, it’s a Gaelic tune and it’s also sung, I mean I don’t sing, but it has a voice to it as well. And I cannot pronounce it exactly, so I’m just just not going to attempt to pronounce, but it’s a very beautiful tune. The second of which is the Strathspey Cuttie’s wedding, one of the tunes my fiddle teacher Alan taught me which I really like. Then I’ll finish off with a reel, the two is a set I used to play regularly with the band on Uist, so it’s kind of remembering those and a signal for them, so yeah, that’s what I’m playing.

 

Flo: Well, I’m super excited about that and thank you so much for making the time again and we’ll hear from you soon.

 

Emilia: Yeah, I hope so, thank you so much for having me.

 

Flo: Perfect, thank you!

#HISATradFest