JOHN PURSER CURRENT PROJECTS AND EVENTS – 2013
On Sunday 19th May, at the “Northern Peripheries” group meeting at Sabhal Mor Ostaig, John spoke about how his own music reflects the Highland environment. On 22nd May he attended Paddy Bushe’s reading of his poems and translations of Sorley MacLean into Irish. John spoke about his musical setting of Sorley’s Creagan Beaga in the context of translation.
On 1st June, BBC Radio 3′s Music Matters included a discussion on Scottish music in which John took part with Sally Beamish. Tom Service is the presenter.
26th-27th April in collaboration with Dr. Graeme Lawson, John took part in a specialist meeting and seminar in Inverness on the Archaeological discoveries at High Pasture Cave (Uamh an Ard Achadh) on Skye. Graeme and John discussed the discovery of part of a bridge for a plucked string instrument dating from c.300 BC, and its significance in the physical and cultural environment.
On the 27th, Elizabeth Ford kindly read John’s paper on The Philosopher’s Opera by John MacLaurin, at the Musica Scotica conference in Edinburgh.
John is currently working on a piece commissioned by Philip Norris and Lynda Green for their 25th wedding anniversary. It is for cello and piano (their instruments respectively). It is, naturally enough, both happy and romantic. The commission is funded by Creative Scotland.
On the poetry front, John’s poem “For Will MacLean” is published in the current issue of the prestigious poetry magazine, The Dark Horse. His new and collected poems (awaiting a proper title) are to be published by Zeticula Press.
John is currently working as producer with Bonnie Rideout on her latest CD, Scotland’s Fiddle Piobaireachd Volume 2.
On the croft, the peats are now all cut; the potatoes all planted; and the cattle are now out on the common grazings. Robert’s mother jumped a gate and a cattle-grid to retrieve her grown-up son from the croft, the pair of them leaving in a different direction involving jumping three fences. Cattle – 1, humans – nil.