What sounds like a gasp is the opening sound of piper Brìghde Chaimbeul’s 2023 album Carry Them With Us – made in collaboration saxophonist Colin Stetson – but this gasp doesn’t come from a person’s mouth, rather, it’s the first breath of her pipes: taking in air before regaling the listener with storied melodies. Through her wonderful playing of the Great Highland bagpipe and the revived Scottish smallpipes, Chaimbeul brings these instruments to life anew. Following a lineage that spans hundreds of years of a folk tradition that beckons the soul and the feet towards movement, Chaimbeul’s attentive compositions drag the bagpipe’s drones out from an ancient-sounding habitat to somewhere that feels utterly contemporary. Droning inquisitive refrains and animated reels run through this young but already masterful musician’s work, who, emerging from Scotland, has been making a name for herself as one of the UK trad scene’s most exciting new talents. At times sombre, but always sparkling with glints of hope, Chaimbeul’s music breathes and pulses with life, as do her pipes, as do all of us.

*This is a seated concert