WHEN the pandemic began they were strangers. Now a group of musicians who connected online during the Covid-19 crisis has turned their lockdown lifeline into a brand new band.
Despite living in the Greater Glasgow area, guitarist Michael Pont, whistle player Martin Laird and fiddler Amy Lewis hadn’t met until coronavirus stopped them from going anywhere.
Now they’re bandmates after an at-home hobby aimed at taking them through the crisis saw them form Glastur, which plays traditional music from Scotland and Asturias in Spain. That’s home to software engineer David Fernandez, the mutual friend who reached out to introduce the three after he became stuck in his birth country after flying back from Glasgow for a visit.
The flautist and whistle player knew each of the other players in turn and all four have spent the past few months using messaging and music apps to perform and record music together, despite the distance between them.
Pont, a primary school teacher, said: “It’s brightened up our lockdown experience a lot.
“It’s been quite difficult from time to time. It’s been a wee ray of light.”
The new friends used the Acapella app to record their individual parts and layer them together, and Whatsapp to work out what they wanted to do in the first place. They also had socially distanced Friday night drinks over Zoom to get to know each other and, though Fernandez remains in Asturias, have begun posting material on Youtube and Facebook. Pont said: “We’d definitely like to keep this going.”
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