By KATRINA BRANDON
EXPLORING the depths of the Celtic adventure, the ARC Yinnar featured Polytropos on March 14.
Attendees enjoyed the worldly woes of Celtic journeys through each country, from Scottish shanties to Spanish Celtics.
Polytropos is made up of Rennie Pearson and Oscar West. During their shows, Mr Pearson and Mr West frequently swap between instruments such as the flute, guitar, violin, vocals, electric kick drum, and pipes. Reviving each other, they also swap harmonies and melodies and asked the audience to join in on their performance.
“I tend to prefer the slightly smaller, the more intimate venues for this kind of music because it leans itself more to that. I mentioned it before; it has a living room vibe. It’s less of a formal sit down,” Mr Pearson said.
“I have performed at plenty of these performing art centres, and that is great as well, but I would usually choose a smaller, more intimate venue over those if there were one available just because I find that energetic crackle you get in the room, it is easier to generate that in those little venues.”
Mr Pearson and Mr West come from New Zealand and grew up playing in informal gatherings, where they eventually met. Mr Pearson told the Express that he was exposed to Celtic music at a young age. He found some Celtic CDs among his dad’s Americano music collection, which inspired him to look further into the genre.
Later, he found inspiration in the work of Chris Norman, who was his apprentice when he was 19. During that experience, he travelled to the east coast of Canada and studied Celtic music for a year.
With uplifting energy, the audience enjoyed listening to the educational adventure throughout the show, featuring Gertrude, the old van that Mr Pearson and Mr West had travelled in during previous years for tours.
“We are also quite knowledgeable about music and are interested in its history,” Mr Parson said.
“We like to put everything in context for people to open the door to them connecting with the music in a different way, and on top of that, it’s going to be sort of like a journey from toe-tapping, ticks and reels, making people kind of want to leap up from their chair and dance, also stuff that is kind of going to be heart-wrenching, slow, beautiful, melodic pieces and songs, and a whole array of different instruments.”
Mr Pearson said that Celtic music is in a resurgence, and that younger people are listening to it.
“Around Gippsland, there is quite a big scene of people playing Celtic music and listening to it, which is really cool,” he said.
“We had a great time playing at the ARC Yinnar. Oscar wasn’t there, but I was there with a different duo called Half-Life, and we did an amazing show at Yinnar. It was packed out, and people were just enjoying it.”
Mr Pearson has revealed he will perform his Half Light show at the ARC Yinnar on June 12.
Multi-award winning guitarist and songwriter Bob McNeill will be sharing the stage with Mr Pearson for their tour Half Light.
For more information, go to renniepearsonmusic.com/
