Music Hall Ceilidh with Danse McCabre

Danse McCabre are bringing a ceilidh night to the Music Hall on Saturday 24 October. If you've never come across them, they're an all-girl ceilidh band from right here in Aberdeen, formed back in 2003. They bill themselves as the all-girl ceilidh band in the North of Scotland, and they've been playing the local scene for over two decades now.

The night is built around a lively, eclectic mix of old and less familiar dances, so it's not just the same few tunes you'll hear on every ceilidh night. They provide their own dance callers and demonstrators, which is the bit that makes it easy to get involved even if you've never danced a step in your life — the caller talks you through the moves and the demonstrators show you what to do, so you can just follow along and not worry about getting it wrong. It's as much about the dancing as the music.

Behind the sound is a trio that's been together since the start. Helen Lynch is on whistles, bodhran and calling; Anne Taylor is on piano and calling; and Shetlander Claire White is on fiddle and vocals. Between them they cover the calling, the tunes and the singing, and they also play weddings and conference banquets alongside their public gigs. The Music Hall itself is a Grade A listed building that opened in 1822 as Aberdeen's Assembly Rooms, designed by Archibald Simpson, whose work helped earn the city the nickname 'the Granite City'. It opened as a concert hall in 1859 and had a major renovation in late 2018; it now houses a main auditorium seating 1,300 to 1,500, the 100-seat Big Sky Studio and the Rondo cafe and restaurant, and stages everything from comedy and theatre to pop, classical music and the annual Aberdeen International Youth Festival. The ceilidh is on Saturday 24 October at the Music Hall.