The "Flying Fiddles" is a group of school boys and girls, aged around 14, from Uist (there's quite a few clips on YouTube under Flying Fiddles). They are representative of the up-and-coming generation of Gaelic musicians from the Islands, and are very talented. They were going to the Cape Breton Island Festival - they had been invited to play, and it was their first high-profile international gig, and had fundraised hard to cover their expenses, when they were caught by the collapse of Zoom Airlines. My daughter, Isla, seems to have ended up co-ordinating the gathering of donations to get the "Flying Fiddles" boys and girls to their gig on Cape Breton Island. She was up at Edinburgh University with Dr Will Lamb, from Baltimore Maryland, who now lives on North Uist and teaches Gaelic and Music at Laws Castle College. She sent me this eMail:
Dear all - sorry for the mass-mailing, or if I've already sent this to you, but we have a bit of an emergency on our hands. We need to raise £6000 by October in order to help these young musicians from Uist get to their gig in Canada, which would really be a chance in a lifetime for them - if you know of anyone who might be willing to help, or if you have any ideas, then please do let me know. Please see below message from Will Lamb, who works alongside Anna Wendy Stevenson at Lews Castle College.... Many thanks, Isla
She forwarded me this eMail from Will:
Hi all, My colleague Anna Wendy Stevenson is the artistic director for a band of young fiddlers from Uist called 'Flying Fiddles'. They scored a really high profile gig at the Celtic Colours Festival in Cape Breton, Canada, for October. Unfortunately, as you can see from this BBC article from today (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/...ds/7587612.stm ), Zoom airlines has gone bust and it leaves them having to potentially raise another £6000. If anybody knows of anybody who might be albe to give them a hand in any way, please get in touch. They have worked really hard to score this gig and fundraise the tickets with Zoom. Zoom were also sponsoring them some of the tickets. It would be such a disappointment for them if they aren't able to go. Best wishes, Will
If anybody feels they can make a donation, please PM me as Isla has their Bank details. She's trying to get their PayPal details from Anna Wendy, which I'll post when she gets them.