The Galloway Agreement/ The Village and The Road
Wendy Stewart - harp, vocals/ Gavin Marwick - fiddle/ Ruth Morris - nyckelharpa/ Stuart MacPherson - double bass/ Bethany Porter - cello
The Galloway Agreement was formed after Gav, Ruth and Stuart were asked to play strings on Wendy’s Folds In The Fields album. The four of them enjoyed the sound they made playing together and from there an alternative strings quartet was born - fiddle, nyckelharpa, harp and double bass, with a focus on original writing interspersed with some traditional European and Scottish repertoire.
Also through Wendy the group met Dumfries poet Tom Pow, who had written an interesting collection of works on the subject of the dying villages of Europe. They all got together for a five day brain storming at a friend’s house in Eskdalemuir and emerged with The Village and The Road, an hour of beautifully written observational spoken word in the rich surroundings of bespoke musical arrangements. After several shows and periods of development time with theatre director Matthew Zajac and lighting designer Andrew Wilson the show did a 12-date run at Edinburgh Fringe 2022 as part of Made In Scotland, and subsequently were invited to Japan in 2023.
The Galloway Agreement is often now a quintet with the addition of the wonderful Bethany Porter (Bookshop Band, Spell Songs) on cello.