Cauld Blast Orchestra Biography

From the CD Booklet " Savage Dance "

This orchestra was born in the cauld blast that whistled down the River Clyde, through the concrete support pillars of the Kinkston Bridge and swirled round the Victorian splendour of the Co-op Headquarters building in Glasgow's south side in the winter of 89/90, It was in this unlikely but appropriately egalitarian setting that Communicado Theatre Company devised and rehearsed ' Jock Tamson's Bairns ' a revolutionary piece of scottish theatre for the occasion of Burn's night and the start of Glasgow city's year as Cultural Capital of Europe.

The show was an intense and volatile meeting of different disciplines and ideas - theatre, song and dance - featuring the artwork of Keith McIntyre and the music of Karen Wimhurst. Not forgetting the indoor rain, a brick mountain, a talented cast of twenty- three, Liz Lochead as writer and myself as director of the whole piece. Inside all this, the music was the glue which held it all together.
The musicians came from many different disciplines, collaborating and giving the music no traceble pedigree. It's a beautiful mongrel of the streets, with many different fathers and mothers. Wild and exotic. But watch it. This music bites !