Orkney’s Fara feature in Celtic Festival programme

Orkney band Fara will be among the acts featured in a television documentary this evening.

Grass Roots Music looks at how Caribbean music rhythms derive from Scottish military drumming in a special programme from the 2016 Celtic Festival in Barbados.

According to the programme makers, the enslaved workers were banned from playing their own drum beat as it could communicate sentiments and messages across the plantations, so, in order to keep their culture and music alive, they adopted the military style beats of Scottish and English drummers.

The documentary is broadcast, at 8.30pm, on the STV Glasgow and Edinburgh networks – available on Freeview channel 23, Sky channel 117 and Virgin channel 159 — and will be available to watch live on the STV Player.