Published: Thursday, 14th August, 2008 10:30
Dunfermline song duo perform at Festival Fringe for 10th year
By Laura Cummings
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MUSIC lovers flocking to the capital’s Festival Fringe this month are in for a treat with a Dunfermline-based act in action for the 10th consecutive year.
Strictly Songtime, featuring Dunfermline-born Greig Hill and his partner Anne Diack, both singers, will catapult the audience as far back as the 1920s when they perform their very own versions of a range of timeless classics.
With the Fringe featuring music from the Tin Pan Alley era to more modern jazz and swing, visitors are in for a real treat from Sunday.
Following on from Strictly Songtime’s sell-out Fringe production last year – The Great American Songbook – 2008’s festival-goers can look forward to the sequel, The Great American Songbook – Chapter 2, showcasing even more songs from the same popular genre which saw the likes of Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett dazzle millions.
Michael Bublé, Jamie Cullum, Robbie Williams and even Westlife have more recently performed their own versions of songs from the same genre.
Greig, of Townhill Road, commented, “It covers a huge amount of work by so many different lyricists. The bulk of the songs originated in music theatre but over the years they have become what is often referred to as standards. It’s very much become part of our culture.
“Rod Stewart brought out four albums with this sort of stuff in time for Christmas four years running!
“It’s all American composers and lyricists really. The glamour came from Hollywood and a lot of these songs ended up in movies at that time.”
As Time Goes By, I Left My Heart in San Francisco and I Got Rhythm are just a few of the hit songs that the singing duo will sing to the crowds.
Three male pianists will accompany the pair including Dunfermline man Al Moore, who also plays the keyboard.
Strictly Songtime has selected a range of songs from musical legends including Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Jerome
Kern and Ira Gershwin to make this year’s show extra special.
And while performing music and lyrics from the 1920s through to the 1960s may seem like a daunting prospect, Greig, a chartered quantity surveyor, believes being nervous can actually help improve your performance.
He explained, “There’s always a degree of adrenaline running but you just channel it the right way. I don’t think about it as being nerves, I just think of it as adrenaline keeping me going and making a decent performance.”
Anne, who teaches singing privately in Dunfermline, and one of the Strictly Songtime pianists will also perform the Scottish premiére of Maury Yeston’s December Songs – a contemporary song cycle for soprano and piano, inspired by Franz Schubert’s Winterreise.
Composed by the creator of hit Broadway shows Nine, Grand Hotel and Titanic, it was commissioned for the Carnegie Hall’s centennial celebrations in 1991.
Both this year’s shows will be held in the Robertson Music Room of Edinburgh Academy (Venue 70) with The Great American Songbook – Chapter 2 held from 10th-16th August at 8pm, and Maury Yeston’s December Songs on 14th, 15th and 16th August at 3pm.
Greig added, “We’re really looking forward to it, this is our tenth year and we always put (at least) one show on. We are becoming quite a fixture at Edinburgh Academy, this is our fourth year there.
“It’s a more refined venue, it’s all very quiet compared to the High Street where everybody is flying around and sticking leaflets in your hand. It’s a wee musical oasis in the quiet of Stockbridge!”
He continued, “It’s about making use of the fact that one of the biggest arts festivals in the world is on your doorstep.”
Tickets cost £9 (£8 concessions) for The Great American Songbook – Chapter 2 and £6 for December Songs, and are available by calling 724487.
Greig and Anne launched Strictly Songtime in 1998 and plan to travel around various theatres in Scotland with their Fringe performance after the festival.
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